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General: Wood: Much Ado About Paying
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Jon Wood takes a quick look at different revenue models in this week's column, examining the current trend toward a microtransaction / subscription hybrid model.
Revenue models are a tricky business in today's MMO landscape. Back in the late 1990s, early 2000s, things were fairly simple in terms of how MMORPG players paid for their games. In order to play the "big names" like Ultima Online and EverQuest, players would have to pony up the dough monthly (on top of a box purchase) to keep their access.
Over the years though, as the MMO market here in the western world has matured, so too has the way that we are charged to play the game. Numerous different revenue models have been tried over the years, but until recently they've only been looked at one at a time. A game was either free to play, or it had an item mall, or it carried a subscription fee. Today though, we are seeing what many players believe to be a disturbing trend toward a mingling of revenue models for games, with developers in essence "double dipping" from their players.
Read Much Ado About Paying.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I am waiting for companies to try the pay for play model. It must be possible to do it, and when the pricing is right will probably become very popular. Like measuring playtime per minute and paying 5-10 cents per hour.
--
Delanor
That's why I hate companies like Cryptic.
The other article on MMORPG.com about the Top MMO failures said it perfectly, about how the horrible management with bad bussiness practices from Flagship Studios went over to Cryptic and took their sleezy money schemes along with them and integrated them seamlessly into Cryptic.
They push out unfinished, shallow, procedural crap games. Charge full price for it. Have a AAA monthly fee. An item mall. Try to scam people into buying Lifetime and longterm subscription fees BEFORE the game is launched. By putting a truckload of money into advertisement and Hyping up their games. And with STO also waste tons and tons of development time and money by creating a ton of different ingame bonus items and other pre-order perks. Just to maximize initial box sales.
Then they put it in maintainance mode after the first month is up. As player retention rate is extremely low. Wich they know and predicted ofcourse.
And then later when they finally start adding the missing content to fill up the gaps, they even have the guts to charge their remaining players for it! (see announced CO expansion that is suppose to fill up a 3 level content gap, they themselves created at launch with the panic last minute XP nerf)
I really hope Cryptic goes belly under after STO fails (and it will). So a clear message is sent into the MMO industry, that we (players) no longer accept these shady and bad bussiness practices!!
This is my 2 cents.
Totally agree. Amem brother
As I seem to recall when MMOs first emerged with a subscription model it always said that the fee was for servers, maintenance and continued development.
Somewhere along the way it's just become an acceptable way for them to get more money out of the players.
That's why I always laugh when Blizzard posts new subscription numbers... 11 million and you're STILL charging $15 a month.
I highly disagree that Subscription MMO favors the hardcore player who can put in lots of hours to get their worth from it.
$15 a month means I have to play for about 2-4 hours A MONTH to know I got enough time to compensate my expense. My cable bill (of which I watch less TV then I spend time in some game or another) is much higher then this. If I go to a movie I spend this much or more for 90-120 minutes of entertainment. Seriously why do people keep thinking you need to play a ton of hours to justify such a tiny and insignificant cost.
I do sub to MMOs that I might only play a few hours a month, because the cost for entertainment value is cheaper then just about any other form of entertainment out there (outside of netflix). It is truly cheap and no you do not have to be hardcore and log lots of hours for it to be worth it. Only when I am not playing that MMO at all does the cost no longer make sense, but if I can find a few hours out of 30 days to have fun in there then it is worth it.
I used to be a hardcore MMO player in the fact that Iogged lots of hours, at this stage in my life I log significantly less hours then before but the cost is still extremely reasonable to me. I do enjoy movies, I do enjoy having a few drinks, I do enjoy TV. They're also all more expensive on an entertainment/time basis then MMO gaming. Plus I rarely buy MMOs, I only sub up once you can do a free trial that will turn into a full game subscription for just the sub price. That alone makes monthly sub MMOs CHEAPER then single player games. Because for 50-60 bucks I just got 4 months of entertainment vs the few hours or couple days I just got from a single player game.
I also won't play a game that does a mixed model. If the game I sub to suddenly starts offering other benefits or items that cost extra real money, I quit. But I'm also smart enough to realize that my action is insignificant because for every person like me there are a dozen people who will buy the item/bonus and more then cover the cost of me leaving.
"I really hope Cryptic goes belly under after STO fails (and it will). .." Guillermo 197
I really can't believe the comments here. You really wish for people to loose their jobs and customers to loose their money by companies going under?
Get a grip.
So very very true. It seams this is becoming the norm nowdays not only at cryptic but other sutdios as well.
Take a look at what lotro is fixing to do. Changed the pricing up to offer 3 and 6 month and lifetime memberships then sale you an appac but give you the xpac free, talk about shady practices. LOTRO knows they had a lot of folks leaving and not resubing this was trying to keep the folks from leaving, all this did was a quick cash infusion for the company to make the 2009 books look good to investors.This chaning up the subcription model made tons of folks unhapy, and confused a lot of other folks. I am sure that that all this is going to change soon when they force us the same route as dnd, I just feel for anybody who bought a lifetime account now, as we can all see the writing on the wall as the f2p/p2p/ddo model is comming this way.
I don't think LotRO is planning on going f2p at all. It is a much different game then DDO. Even their oldest and smallest game isn't F2P (Asheron's Call). I think DDO was a special case of wanting to try a new way to bring people into the game, and having a game distinctively designed around dungeons. It was easy to get an item store into a game like that.
However how much did lifetime memberships cost? $200? If you've had it over 13 months then it has already paid out, because after 13 months you'd have paid more in monthly fees (assuming you never got the 9.99 deals but then just draw the numbers out a big more) then you would have on a lifetime membership.
So very very true. It seams this is becoming the norm nowdays not only at cryptic but other sutdios as well.
Take a look at what lotro is fixing to do. Changed the pricing up to offer 3 and 6 month and lifetime memberships then sale you an appac but give you the xpac free, talk about shady practices. LOTRO knows they had a lot of folks leaving and not resubing this was trying to keep the folks from leaving, all this did was a quick cash infusion for the company to make the 2009 books look good to investors.This chaning up the subcription model made tons of folks unhapy, and confused a lot of other folks. I am sure that that all this is going to change soon when they force us the same route as dnd, I just feel for anybody who bought a lifetime account now, as we can all see the writing on the wall as the f2p/p2p/ddo model is comming this way.
um what Lotro changes, your confusing me. Are you upset that they stoped charging the special 9.99 deal? Cause you know thats a little bonus they throw your way when a xpack ships or your a founder/beta tester...but it alwasy clearly says "we revert to the normal rate if you unsub"
now as for the other subjects, i alctually like champions c-Store. 90% of the stuff in there was either something you could grind ingame for or multiples of something that already exists.
How many people are going to have 45 costumes like i do? 4 is enough for most people i'd think.
The subscription fee is also favored by families. They know exactly how much it will cost to play. Several games have started to offer discounts for families.
I don't believe the subscription favors the hardcore. Most of the "hardcore" are the folks who burn through the content as if it's a race. The box fee and free 30 days included is about all they (hardcore players) use.
Personally I don't mind the stores for goofy window dressing items. I never purchase any of them. Seeing other players showing off the "new haircut" or other worthless items just gives me the giggles.
Games that sell exp enhancements or better gear I will not bother playing. Granted, I have the money to throw at such things, but its just a game. If the game isn't good enough without enhancement to keep my interest then why would I play it?
But did you see the video that was on this site from the GDC where two of Blizzard's dev's talked about what went into making and supporting their games?
I don't doubt they are making a nice profit but the amount of manpower that goes into WoW is quite impressive. Given everything I also don't doubt that it takes quite a bit of money to keep it going.
This is not to say game companies don't suffer from bad management but I find it hard to accept that game company x has y amount of subs and therefore they are all riding to work in gold rocket cars.
Times have changed, game development has changed a bit and it costs more to make games. And support their workers.
if someone who worked at a an established game company who was intimate with the business goings on said that "yes, it costs peanuts to run these things and everybody gets a mansion as part of their holiday bonus" then I would take pause.
But it seems that people only want to argue from a very narrow point of view with no actual numbers to back up their claims. It's speculation. Even the success of Guild Wars is shrouded a bit in mystery as they did implement some microtransactions and did claim that to keep adding to the game as it was in the matter that they had would cost too much given their financial model.
but all I see are players coming to forums saying "Guild Wars 2 is going to be an open world and they are only going to charge for the box". I say wait and see until the game comes out as well as how it is implemented before we start rushing mmo companies with pitch forks and torches.
Not to mention that these game companies don't seem to operate, for the most part, in "Lost Corners Idaho". The cost of living and doing business in a large city is far different than working for an indy company put together by friends in the boonies of Maine.
It's all speculation until one can actually see the numbers.
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
RMTing and Item Malls are only for lazy punks who dont feel they should have to put in the same effort as hardcore players to get the same reward. its a shame people forgot that time + effort = reward and now its going to be CC = reward.
Agreed fully. I'm now kind of expecting that the fleshed out Klingon PvE game will be available in a paid expansion in a few months.
Talk about the worst of all three worlds on one crappy game.
No, he's wishing for companies that use shady business practices to nickel and dime their customers to go under. I fully agree and support that sentiment and I fully trust that the talented employees of such companies will be able to find a job somewhere else developing other MMOs/games.
Agreed fully. I'm now kind of expecting that the fleshed out Klingon PvE game will be available in a paid expansion in a few months.
Talk about the worst of all three worlds on one crappy game.
Your expecting it to last more than a few months. Man you give them some credit.
They couln't even keep the Beta open for one full day before the end of beta event. It would go down, for several hours, several times a day, right up to the end.
And sometimes it took the Champions authentication server with it.
The DDO model is the best imo since it means that everybody wins! I think there is huge potential in this kind of payment options.
The worst are greedy companies like Cryptic/Atari who make fast, cheap games and then make fans pay for the box+ monthly sub+ microtransaction+ you have to pay for new content.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
If he doesn't, I do.
Bad products deserve to fail, bad companies deserve to get punished. And it is the customer that gets the vote.
That is how the market works.
Is it too bad people get fired? Sure. When they do they should blame management and the "money men" who often dictate what will or will not go into a game and when it will launch, regardless of its condition.
When the features of a game are dictated to maximize profit at the expense of gameplay, by management, more often then not you are going to get a crappy product. Such products deserve to fail.
So you expect the creators of games, and all the many employees it takes to run a game company....all to what....work for free and put all the money they make back into the game?
ROFLMAO....Ooookay.
How is it that people forget that a game is NOT JUST FOR THE PLAYERS....it is a business. They have a right to charge, not only for the services the provide, but for their creative staff that CONTINUES to provide. Unless you'd like for a game to cost you a few thousand dollars as a one time fee....I think the monthly payment plan is pretty damn fair. There's nothing WRONG with getting RICH off of your creative product.
Or do you think actors should also just charge a one time fee and then make all their films for us for free too? Yup...everyone pays say, Angelina Jolie 15 bucks a month (about the cost of two movie tickets)....and then she's expected to continue to make films indefinitely for free, other than that 15 bucks a month we pay her...oh...and people that don't choose to subscribe to her films...can't see them at all....
HA....snowball's chance in hell....
The creative arts COST MONEY...all of them.
It's funny how people will bitch about paying for the creative arts, in any form....and yet gladly pay fucking athletes millions a year, and half the time....TO LOSE. WTF? It costs more to go to the Super Bowl than an entire YEAR'S worth of MMO subscription fees. THINK.....
EDIT: Incidentally...I'm not saying we should continue to give money to a BAD developer, or to a game or game company that isn't providing the entertainment we want, but FFS....I don't think it's fair to deny these people money for jobs they're doing. They have families and children and grandchildren, dogs, cats, horses, mortgages, etc, etc. Yup...a lot of them are rich as hell and have no problem paying all those bills, but they're RICH...because they worked for it. If YOU created the game and kept it updated, made expansions, and saw to it that it was running smooth and provided a valuable service and product for YOUR client....I suppose you'd do it for less money once you got "rich enough" right?
HAHAHAHA....yeah...no. Fuckin' hell no.
And regarding RMT....NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO BUY THIS SHIT. HAVE SOME FUCKING SELF CONTROL AND KEEP YOUR WALLET ZIPPED....Jeeeezus.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
So you expect the creators of games, and all the many employees it takes to run a game company....all to what....work for free and put all the money they make back into the game?
ROFLMAO....Ooookay.
How is it that people forget that a game is NOT JUST FOR THE PLAYERS....it is a business. They have a right to charge, not only for the services the provide, but for their creative staff that CONTINUES to provide. Unless you'd like for a game to cost you a few thousand dollars as a one time fee....I think the monthly payment plan is pretty damn fair. There's nothing WRONG with getting RICH off of your creative product.
Or do you think actors should also just charge a one time fee and then make all their films for us for free too? Yup...everyone pays say, Angelina Jolie 15 bucks a month (about the cost of two movie tickets)....and then she's expected to continue to make films indefinitely for free, other than that 15 bucks a month we pay her...oh...and people that don't choose to subscribe to her films...can't see them at all....
HA....snowball's chance in hell....
The creative arts COST MONEY...all of them.
It's funny how people will bitch about paying for the creative arts, in any form....and yet gladly pay fucking athletes millions a year, and half the time....TO LOSE. WTF? It costs more to go to the Super Bowl than an entire YEAR'S worth of MMO subscription fees. THINK.....
a valid point but at some point you make enough to pay everyone their worth, the rest is pure greed. I'm pretty sure at 12 million subscribers WoW would get along just fine at $12.99. Or hell take a page from LoTRO "if you buy expansion X in Time frame Y subcription drop to 9.99 but if you ever unsub its back up to 14.99"
a valid point but at some point you make enough to pay everyone their worth, the rest is pure greed. I'm pretty sure at 12 million subscribers WoW would get along just fine at $12.99. Or hell take a page from LoTRO "if you buy expansion X in Time frame Y subcription drop to 9.99 but if you ever unsub its back up to 14.99"
So what????
Name ONE....just ONE....major corporation that you think ISN'T greedy. Go on...I have to hear an answer to that.
I can't believe the self-righteous hypocrisy in this thread. Everyone acting like if it was THEIR company, that they would do ONE damn thing different. Hilarious....really.
Don't like RMT....just don't buy. Is that SO complicated?? I don't understand you people on these forums sometimes...I really don't.
I don't like RMT either, if it's implemented in such a way that it affects gameplay. If it's all cosmetics and crap....I just don't buy anything. That seems ridiculously simple to me.....
I agree with what you said, however...sure they COULD lower the price, but...from a business standpoint, as long as people keep paying the same price....why rob yourself of the money by lowering the price?
Maybe they should offer poverty discounts? For people that make below a certain amount of money a year....we'll only charge 10 bucks a month. We could start a whole new pricing practice....Welfare Sub Programs.
I mean...we have welfare epics....why not welfare subs?? Problem is...those people, are already playing, and for the most part....they're not complaining about the price. It's the cheapest form of entertainment you can get outside of playing Monopoly.....
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
1 word
Incentives
i agree with your point but i also agree with the other guy. And really if their was a "limited time WoW discount" for early expansion adopters there would probably be a surge in retail boxes intead of people waiting for it to go on sale.
Sure a little less money in the short term but who know about the long term
if you hook a bunch of people at 9.99 who scoffed at 14.99 that money you DIDn't have before.
Bingo.
Note: I say "you" in general here, not to anyone in particular. So if anyone reading this gets offended as though I'm addressing them... well.. then perhaps I've hit a nerve.
MMORPGs are as much an online *service* as they are entertainment. There is a fee for the ongoing cost of servers, bandwidth, employees, etc. etc. The subscription fee is what allows the customers to continue playing the content online which they purchased with the original box (or download, these days). It's a perfectly sensible approach and it is what allows them to continue maintaining the game and adding to it. You pay for the *content* of the game when you buy the box. You pay for the *service* of continuing to play online after that via a subscription fee.
This whole mentality of "Subscription based MMOs favoring hardcore gamers" is complete and utter bullshit. That mindset comes from the mentality of people obsessed with having to "keep up with everyone else, even if they have less time to play". No one - and I mean literally no one - I ever saw in any MMORPG I played prior to WoW (DAoC, FFXI, AC2, and a few others) ever complained that they couldn't keep up or couldn't "catch up to those with more time to play. They were having too much fun simply *playing the game*, doing whatever it was they were doing... and because it's a ridiculous mindset.
Having less time to play does not make mine, yours or that other guy's subscription fee any more valuable than anyone else's. We all pay the same fee. We all have access to the same content, the same challenges and the same rewards... along with the same amount of overall in-game time and effort to achieve them. No one is favored. How much or little time someone has to play is *not* the developers' problem.
That's why a subscription-based MMO is, in fact, a level playing field. No one is favored by subscription model... everyone gets exactly the same access to exactly the same content for exactly the same cost. I'll say it again... How much or little time one person has compared to another is *not the developers' problem*.
Since personal accountability seems to be such an alien concept to some people, here's an example of it: If the game you've *chosen* to play (no one's forcing you to... no really, they're not) proves not conducive to the kind of progress you want to make in the time you have allotted... and you absolutely can not or will not alter your expectations to suit your play time... then perhaps you should consider *playing something else* that fits your schedule and expectations better. I know... novel concept, right? But naw... easier to pretend the world revolves around you and that those damn clueless developers are at fault for "favoring the hardcore players" when they really should be favoring you.
There is no "unfair" treatment of one play style over another. It's a fallacy dreamed up by those with some kind of jealousy complex of anyone doing "better than them", who for some reason only value their own in-game progress and experiences as compared to those farther along than them.
In a nutshell, the mentality seems to be: "I'm not where they are, and I want to be, and I'm not, so this game is unfair and favors those with more time than me to play. I am not at all accountable for the fact that I chose to play this game, and choose to continue playing it, despite my dissatisfaction with it. It's the developers' fault that I'm not enjoying myself more". Boo freaking hoo. No. It's not unfair. It's called life.
And to those ready to give the oh-so-predictable, old and tired cliche's....
No, I'm not a no-life, elitist end-gamer who just wants to keep all the other players down.... blah blah blah. I have a full-time job. I live in my own apartment, not "my mother's basement". I play MMOs, maybe, 2-3 hours 3 or 4 nights a week. In FFXI, my main and most played MMO, I have *one* level 75 job - out of 20 - and I've been playing since it launched in the US. I have none of the best high-end gear. I am in none of the best high-end raiding groups, nor do I want to be. I'm not sorry to burst any bubbles.
I am simply not obsessed with the idea of "people being farther along than me because they can play more" and do not believe it's "unfair" that I'm unable to keep up with them by playing for less time. I don't expect special treatment because I can't play as much. I don't believe there should be ways to buy my way through the game. I realize that I am but a single person paying a sub for FFXI out of hundreds of thousands and that the game doesn't revolve around me and my "personal schedule". I believe that if I ever reach the point where I can no longer enjoy FFXI on those terms, that I will decide it's time to move on and find a game that better suits my preferences.
/rant over
And sorry for the rant... but this whole concept of "sub-based games favoring hardcore players" is just a complete crock that needs to die... People simply need to evaluate their own situations, make more reasonable choices accordingly, and accept responsibility when they choose poorly, instead of trying to blame it on something or someone else. I know... that's a pipe dream.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I have given up on MMOs for the time being until a game comes out that (1) I like and (2) has:
- Play free forever option + subscription for advanced content (a la DDO & Runescape)
- No box price
- No charges for Account-level services for subscribers (e.g., Server transfers)
- Would tolerate a "cash shop" for vanity options only
That's all I'm willing to spend money on. I'll pay $20/month subscription for a good game, but I simply won't be nickle and dimed and then held hostage when a server turns to crap.
So until the above model becomes more prevalent, I'll continue playing single player RPGs as I'm now doing.
I want to give some worthy company my money and support a good game. But the company can't see me as some piggy bank they can keep dipping into. I'm done with that crap.
So very very true. It seams this is becoming the norm nowdays not only at cryptic but other sutdios as well.
Take a look at what lotro is fixing to do. Changed the pricing up to offer 3 and 6 month and lifetime memberships then sale you an appac but give you the xpac free, talk about shady practices. LOTRO knows they had a lot of folks leaving and not resubing this was trying to keep the folks from leaving, all this did was a quick cash infusion for the company to make the 2009 books look good to investors.This chaning up the subcription model made tons of folks unhapy, and confused a lot of other folks. I am sure that that all this is going to change soon when they force us the same route as dnd, I just feel for anybody who bought a lifetime account now, as we can all see the writing on the wall as the f2p/p2p/ddo model is comming this way.
um what Lotro changes, your confusing me. Are you upset that they stoped charging the special 9.99 deal? Cause you know thats a little bonus they throw your way when a xpack ships or your a founder/beta tester...but it alwasy clearly says "we revert to the normal rate if you unsub"
now as for the other subjects, i alctually like champions c-Store. 90% of the stuff in there was either something you could grind ingame for or multiples of something that already exists.
How many people are going to have 45 costumes like i do? 4 is enough for most people i'd think.
WE actually had 2 founders who had the 9.95 pricing, They unsubed from the game, as they both felt the were being jacked into a new pricing plan. Both of them left for other games one went to aion the other to aoc. I already had the lifetime that I paid the original 199 for when the offered it way back with preorder. For me it was another 20 bucks but for my 2 friends it was the straw that broke the cammels back.
Missed one other option IMO:
"Official RMT"
EVE Online has been using this strategy for a while now (though there may very well be others). A system set up and sanctioned by the game company whereby players can choose to pay real money for a game time code, and then sell that GTC to another player (via secured transation secured by the company) for in-game money.
Different from an item mall because there is nothing else on sale, simply the ability for one player to trade in-game cash for a month's worth of playtime - but without further intervention by the company (i.e. the players set the going rate). A subset of a subscription model game (as someone has to pay money for the subscription at some point) but different enough to warrent mention I think.