Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Business Models

The most prominent business model for MMORPGs is the monthly subscription model. You pay once to buy the game and after the first month you pay monthly to access the servers on which the game runs.

The monthly sub model is prominent, because it was and is so profitable. Absurdly profitable, to be specific. In the last decade, common people wrongly figured that running a server costs a hell of a lot of money (their internet access certainly did!). Consequently, they thought that $15 was a fair deal. All MMORPGs, even the presumably 'failed' ones, thus, made a lot of money.
But the profit lured competitors. At first not enough to force a drop in the monthly sub, but enough to keep it from ever raising, in spite of inflation.

As the competition grew ever more numerous, it turned out that the sub model has a problem with very small fees. The reason is that the biggest obstacle is not the actual money, but the psychology of subscribing to something. People don't really subscribe to services that cost 50 cent a month, because these services seem less valuable than the psychological resistance to subscribe to anything. In fact, they seem so little valuable exactly because they cost so little.
One alternative would have been to make yearly subscriptions, but players didn't know how long they would play and, consequently, subscription periods of longer than a month never made it into reality.

At the same time, the costs of playing a MMORPG were actually incredibly low from a consumer point of view. Of course, they wouldn't pay more than necessary, but a cheaper competition wasn't really a strong incentive to buy. In fact, people knew perfectly well that paying $15 a month for something that one does for at least 20 hours a month is just incredibly cheap. I know that I've never spent less money in my life than during 'addiction-like MMORPG periods'.

New games couldn't have higher prices, because they had a hard time anyway competing against existing games. Old games couldn't justify to increase prices, either. And the almost completely price-inelastic demand prevented companies from offering lower prices. A lower price just wasn't a strong incentive to get into an new MMORPG, because the prices were already so low. Players just played the MMORPG they liked best and never even thought about changing to a worse MMORPG, just because it is cheaper.
Thus, we had stagnating fees at about $15 a month and no way out for years.
A perfect example for how traditional economics fail in reality.


Free To Play
Eventually somebody got the idea to make a game f2p. This game could be downloaded and be played just like that. No psychological barriers whatsoever. But this wasn't enough to make money, obviously. So, f2p games started to be f2p only initially and required money later on. There have been a lot of discussions about what should be free in a f2p game and what not. The bottom line is that being too harsh with pay-requirements doesn't pay off at all. But just hoping that players pay for really useless in-game stuff, doesn't really pay, either.

F2P games achieved something that I have asked for for a very long time: market segmentation. It's a pity that there is no $100-a-month full-grown virtual world out there. I would like to p(l)ay it! And it's also a pity that there is no $1-a-month MMO-lite out there. Some players might find that an MMO-lite (lobby-based minigames, or just raiding) is actually what they want.

F2P achieves market segmentation, but unfortunately not with a multitude of different games, but within one single game. More on that later.

For the consumer, f2p has the advantage that they don't feel like paying when they do not play. Something that isn't feasible with the subscription model. A pay-once-per-3-days model would remember players too often that they are paying. Nobody likes to pay that often. And the small amounts they would pay, would make the game seem rather cheap, too. Why should you pay so often for something worth so little? I know, that's irrational; but that's what psychology often is. Monthly payments have turned out to be a good compromise, not just for MMORPGs.

For the industry, f2p has even more advantages. It is a known fact that MMORPGs can become an addiction-like activity for some players. These players potentially pay much, much more than just $15 a month. And at the same time, the company can boast with incredible numbers of registered players due to high accessibility. Most importantly, in theory, every player pays exactly what the game is worth for him, never less. A dream for any CEO.

Recently a lot of MMORPGs changed their business model from a monthly sub to f2p. The reasons seem obvious. The players who are already paying $15 a month, obviously are willing to pay $15 a month. And as rational agents, they will continue to spend $15 a month if that is what the f2p model requires them to do.

The players who don't think that playing is worth $15, aren't currently playing the game, anyway! So, all you need to do as a developer is make sure that the players who already pay $15 also need to pay $15 in the future.

But there are reasons you will make a profit. Firstly, there are players who would like to play the game, but $15 is too much. In fact, there might be players who would like to play, but only if their friend, who doesn't want to pay, plays. And not-paying players also spread the word of mouth. Thus, even players who do not pay at all can increase your profit, albeit indirectly.
Secondly, some players that originally payed only $15 a month, might be willing to pay more. Much more. In a competitive environment they might even want to pay absurd amounts. Now they can.
Finally the switch to f2p is cheap news. And news is good. This news is especially good, as the central message of the news is that players can check out your game without paying anything. Some players will check you out and start to pay. You don't even suffer much from the "cheap game" prejudice, because the game was once a "quality sub game". Therefore, it might actually always be advantegous to launch with a monthly sub and then switch to f2p.

Of course, not all players are this kind of rational agent. Some might dislike the f2p model for other reasons. Here are a few:

1) A direct connection between a player's wallet and his in-game status blurres the barriers between the virtual world and reality. In some way a player's available time has always blurred this barrier, of course. But, at least, players needed to invest the time in-game. They needed to 'work' in-game for the goodies they owned in-game. If they can buy the goodies with dollars, they don't.
This argument is not about fairness, but about immersion! If somebody runs around with a fiery sword, because he spent $5, the game just isn't really immersive. If he runs around with a fiery sword, because he killed 5000 fire giants then this doesn't really make the game more fair: the guy obviously has absurd amounts of free time. But it does make the game more immersive. It makes (more) sense on an in-game level that a fictional in-game character runs around with a fiery sword due to an in-game action.
In the end, the change of the business model is not just a change of the business model. It also changes the product in a way that some players, me included, don't like at all.

2) For the players, those who are already paying $15 are rarely better off when a game switches to f2p. As desribed above, it is in the management's best interest to require them to continue to pay at least $15 per month, if they want to continue playing the game on the same level. It is in the management's interest, because the management knows for certain that this experience is worth $15 for those players who already payed $15 in the past. In fact, one major part of the revenue from f2p games stems from players who pay much, much more than $15 a month. These players will most probably be players that have played the game already while it was running a monthly sub model, because those who only join after the f2p switch, obviously aren't willing to pay as much. So, I often furrow my brows when players applaud a switch to f2p.

3) The f2p business model creates bad incentives for the developers. Developers of a monthly sub game need to keep players interested in the game for as along as possible. That's not necessarily true for the developers of a f2p game. They can profit alot and instantaneously, if they can somehow make players pay. My personal theory of how the sparkle pony was created is that the WoW developers wanted to do something the management didn't really agree with. Thus, they made a deal: if the developers could make $25 million over-night, they would get their way. They threw all good taste overboard and made the most childish sparkling prestige mount ever. They got their way. Oh, by the way, Tobold: the sparkle pony was a limited edition.

Should you wonder, how that mount could have made such a profit, you need to understand this: The best way to make money is to make highly controversial items that a few people love, no matter whether many others dislike them. (That's universal. Have a look at this post about statistics of beauty.)
Some 1% of the WoW players like to pay $25 for a highly controversial sparkle pony. Some other 1% might like the black skull mount. Another 1% might like the white pony with tatoos of naked mermaids on the limb. Of course, this way the world becomes populated by many highly controversial mounts; not really an enjoyable experience for anyone. But for a time, the company makes a hell of a profit. Much more than if they had sold just one mount that is acceptable for everyone, but not loved by anyone. And some players will even argue that you should just shut up if you don't like their mount, completely ignoring the fact that your mount is not only part of your gaming experience, but also part of mine.

4) The f2p business model incentivises the management to abuse the player's psychology. One way are obscure payment schemes. Have a look at the Psychology of Video Games Blog. These schemes are not in the interest of the players at all.

27 comments:

  1. " The f2p business model creates bad incentives for the developers. Developers of a monthly sub model game need to keep players interested in the game for as along as possible."

    I would say that the subscription model makes the bad incentives. The goal becomes to keep the player as long as possible, not based on the amount of time they actually play, but based on the amount of time they subscribe. So developers are much more pressured to fill content and drag the players along.

    With a f2p model there isn't this pressure. You don't have to make the experience drag on long enough that the player will resubscribe; you want to make the player invest enough in the experience to feel comfortable purchasing additional things, but that is not necessarily related to time in the same way. The amount of time that the player continues to play is a bonus for potential future purchases.

    The real charm of the f2p model is that the barrier to entry is so tremendously low. A well marketed f2p game should be able to get a very large player base, which is half of the content for a good multiplayer game experience.

    Like you said, the mentality of having a low barrier to entry could create a problem psychologically because people expect to get out of things what they put into them. The player is skeptical, but at the same time since their initial expectations are lower the impact of newly discovered quality means more. At the same time it could also predispose them to think that the game is poor quality, even if that's not the case. This can be mitigated by the approval of the community and popularity. It also can be mitigated by giving the game some apparent, distinct value, while keeping it free.

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  2. At the same time it could also predispose them to think that the game is poor quality, even if that's not the case. This can be mitigated by the approval of the community and popularity. It also can be mitigated by giving the game some apparent, distinct value, while keeping it free.

    Something that can be prevented my lauching with a monthly sub, by the way.

    You're right that the monthly-sub model has not the perfect incentives, either. But comparing them to the f2p incentives, I choose the sub-model incentives anytime.

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  3. I thought about it long and hard and decided f2p is superior.

    Because you are so much more flexible and precisely because you can employ all kind of clever marketing tricks using and abusing human psychology and biases . And of course it drops barrier of entry significantly.

    Only drawback is accountability which goes against the f2p throwaway account system .Its a tough nut to crack and I think could be a source of pain long term. But imho f2p model benefits outweight the drawbacks

    Making a world is one part. Another part is making a fun game. but there is a 3d pillar as well -making it all a profitable enteprise.

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  4. Max, I agree that if you just want to make a profit, f2p is probably superior. But as mentioned, even if you have a wonderful management that doesn't abuse the players and is not suceptible to short sighted desires at all, the f2p changes the game.

    It's not just a business model.

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  5. @Nils

    Or launching a b2p (buy to play) game as f2p for the first two weeks or a month in order to promote the game. In that case it's like getting something free that is actually worth something, and it could have a viral effect to get that first, important month to a large player base.

    You could even do something where the people who join after this time and pay the $15 to buy the game, that their money translates into $15 to use in the store in-game.

    This would make it so that these people would each be walking around with $15 worth of items, clothing, etc, allowing the presence of shop items to feel normal and accepted. It also advertises the items to the large number of free early adopters.

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  6. I'll echo what Gilded says above. There's nothing about the subscription model that is inherently virtuous. There are obvious incentives to abuse the customer with a subscription. Most people aren't overly fond of their cable TV companies or cell phone companies, where most people pay subscriptions (at least in the U.S.)

    As I said on my own blog, there can be good or bad implementations of free-to-play. I've quite enjoyed DDO, and likely wouldn't have played it if it were a subscription-based game. But, I wasn't quite so enamored with LotRO's transition of business models.

    I'll also disagree with subscriptions being more "immersive". Perhaps for you, but don't assume your opinions are universal. To me, someone practicing genocide on fire giants is no more immersive in a world attempting to be consistent than the item suddenly appearing out of nowhere because of some transaction that happened outside of the game. But, I also don't assume my opinion is universal, either.

    In the end, free-to-play has a lot of benefits. I enjoy it as a player, and see the benefits of it as a developer. Is it perfect? No. But, as a developer I'm goinig to be just as virtuous with a free-to-play game as I would be with a subscription game. Hopefully people will appreciate my game more than worrying about the business model.

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  7. There are endless evil tricks, Gilded, like getting players to buy anything once. Make potions cost $1 each, but then one day make a limited offer to buy 20 potions for $1.

    Why? Because players who bought something once are much more likely to buy someting again. And they might even think they outsmarted the game company by taking advantage of "the ridiculously cheap" offer.

    I can understand when CEOs become enthusiastic about these possibilities. But players ???

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  8. As far as benefiting the experience for the player, f2p can be implemented strategically to add weight to certain things.

    Also time = money.

    Convenience items have a lot of potential in an MMO that can't be properly capitalized on with a subscription model. It allows for flexibility for the players who don't have time or who have time but not money.

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  9. Psychochild, it's an honor. I read your blog and know that you are an advocat of the f2p model.
    I also agree that a game like DDO is well suited for a f2p model - or rather a "free trial + pay-for-content model".

    The 5000 fire giants have been an arbitrary example, obviously. You can make the activity that rewards the fiery sword much more credible and immersive.

    But you cannot make buying the fiery sword more immersive. Even if it is just a question of style, especially when it is just a question of style, the fiery sword kills immersion if bought for $.

    Also, a hybrid model wouldn't work. You cannot ask players to pay $5 first, and then do what it takes to get the sword. Especially if there is a chance of failure. Players won't accept this.

    I think if a game is naturally segmented into content modules, it's great to finance yourself by selling the individual modules.

    But if you sell a virtual world, this is just not the case. "Fortunately" most MMORPGs nowadays, don't even try to be virtual worlds. If WoW starts to sell access to new dungeons at max level, I really wouldn't care much anymore.

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  10. Convenience items have a lot of potential in an MMO that can't be properly capitalized on with a subscription model. It allows for flexibility for the players who don't have time or who have time but not money.

    Gilded, in my opinion, this is more a problem of current exponential character power progression systems that sabotage playing with your friends.

    Also, please don't make the mistake to assume that players who have a lot of free time have little money and the other way round.

    I know I have quite some money and also quite some free time. And I know quite some people who don't have as much money (worse education) and they not only work more during weeksdays, but actually on Saturday, too.

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  11. "I think if a game is naturally segmented into content modules, it's great to finance yourself by selling the individual modules."

    This is basically the DLC mentality that is becoming a big thing throughout all of gaming. You buy the core game for a lower amount and the additional content is additional.

    As far as the DLC method breaking the "world" aspect, this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. You could have the main continent be included and the other continents be dlc, or require a flying mount to get to certain areas, etc.

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  12. I guess it is a matter of opinion where you draw the line, Gilded.

    I remember playing the Witcher 2 and this monk. I beat him at a cards minigame (he gave up, that's unusual). Then he told me how great I was. Then he told me that he had this increadible gift. When I clicked at it, the browser came up and I apparently had won some stuff.

    I closed the browser in disgust. Maybe it's just me, but I am offended if people try to use cheap psychological tricks on me.

    Any besides: If an up-popping browser is not immersion-breaking, then what is ? :)

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  13. Ideally purchasing should be effortless and non-obtrusive. In other words like how you can practically buy anything on steam with a click, no inputting info if you are already on your account, just a confirmation click.

    As far as the psychological tricks feeling, that's actually a major problem, it can really cheapen the experience. I think that is why transparency is very important. Players don't want to feel like they are being "tricked" or "scammed" into something, they want to know the catch. There should be clear logic behind the offers so that players aren't skeptical and alienated.

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  14. Nils wrote:
    Psychochild, it's an honor.

    Heh, thanks. I read a lot of MMO blogs, particularly of people who comment on my blog. I just don't post unless I have something somewhat insightful to say.

    The 5000 fire giants have been an arbitrary example, obviously. You can make the activity that rewards the fiery sword much more credible and immersive.

    Sure, but let's accept that most games don't. Look at the Tiny Crimson Whelpling in WoW. How immersive is it for some high level pet hunter to go around one-shotting enemies en masse hoping for a 0.5% drop?

    But you cannot make buying the fiery sword more immersive.

    I'll disagree. Of course, this probably gets into a discussion of what one considers "immersive".

    One easy way to make it more immersive is to do what some games do: have a second currency that is only purchasable with real cash; let's call them badges. Then you spend badges to get items from normal NPC vendors in the game. This is just as immersive as looting badges from dungeons in WoW to spend at badge vendors to me.

    However, I don't personally see there being a big difference in my immersion if that person running around with a flaming sword "earned" it by running a lot of dungeons or "earned" it by pulling out a credit card. Further, as a developer, I would have to really consider the impact that selling a "drop" like this, one with a direct gameplay benefit, would have on the game. I suspect I would not want to sell this type of item, but it would be more of a fairness issue than an immersion one.

    Also, a hybrid model wouldn't work. You cannot ask players to pay $5 first, and then do what it takes to get the sword. Especially if there is a chance of failure. Players won't accept this.

    Not true. I paid about $8 for The Voice of the Master in DDO. Okay, so that was the price of the module that has that as a reward, but, I still had to go run the actual quest to get it. I specifically bought the Delera's adventure pack to get that item for the 5% xp bonus. I know I'm not unique. So, your theory isn't universal.

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  15. Psychochild, I am careful with arguments along the line of
    "MMORPGs aren't very immersive in the first place."

    That's true, but not an excuse for making them even less immersive. In my opinion, the guy who killed 5000 fire giants and thus got the fiery sword is more in line with the (stupid?) lore than the guy who bought it from the game company.

    And that's true even though I agree that killing 5000 fire giants - especially one-shotting them - isn't very immersive in the first place.

    The second currency is a little bit better from an immersion point of view. Of course, it's also very useful for many dirty psychological tricks. Look at the link I posted under point (4) in the original post.

    Mmh, you're right and I have been wrong about the hybrid model. Given the right circumstances, it obviously can work. Otherwise .. you bought an adventure pack solely for a 5% exp bonus item? And you don't feel .. dirty? Like playing for character power progression only?

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  16. Nils wrote:

    That's true, but not an excuse for making them even less immersive.

    Again, I think the quibble here is what we individually find immersive. I don't find the possibility that someone else has gotten an item by paying real money for it to break my immersion. (I do find obnoxious buttons on every UI panel advertising a story to break immersion, which is one of my criticisms of LotRO's transition to free-to-play in the blog post I linked above.)

    The second currency is a little bit better from an immersion point of view.

    This is what Puzzle Pirates does. I think they have one of the best free-to-play setups for their game for many reasons.

    Of course, it's also very useful for many dirty psychological tricks. Look at the link I posted under point (4) in the original post.

    You mean like the psychological trick of getting people to forget about their subscriptions and it not being a big enough charge for people to go out of their way to cancel it? A large amount of the money Near Death Studios made from Meridian 59 was from people who had a subscription who just didn't bother to cancel it. And, yeah, I took their money even though some might argue the right thing to do was to stop charging them if they weren't using the service. (I'd like to believe these people were supporting M59, and maybe didn't want the hassle of having to sign up for payment again if they fancy struck them to play the game suddenly.)

    As I said before, there's nothing inherently virtuous about subscriptions; they can be used to psychologically manipulate people, too. If you're worried about dishonest developers, a subscription won't protect you.

    Otherwise .. you bought an adventure pack solely for a 5% exp bonus item? And you don't feel .. dirty? Like playing for character power progression only?

    Naw, I also wanted to experience the content and hear a module narrated by Gygax (even though I'm a bigger fan of Arneson). But, I do have to admit, one big reason I bought that module before others is because I wanted the xp boost item that everyone else loved. :)

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  17. The players who are already paying $15 a month, obviously like to pay $15 a month.

    I take issue with this statement. There is a difference between what someone would "like" to pay, and what they are "willing" to pay.

    I would actually argue that there are many people who would prefer to pay $5 or $10 dollars to play WoW, but because the only option is $15, they pony up. Obviously, this entire segment disappears in F2P.

    A lot of the defenders of F2P don't consider this segment of the population at all.

    Here's a link to a post I wrote about what I think the economics of F2P and subscriptions are (with a graph!): F2P vs. Subscription.

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  18. Great post! I agree with almost everything; just a couple quick thoughts:

    I agree with you completely on the immersion point. I think part of the issue is the conceptual problem with breaking down the barriers between the fictional world and the real one, and part of it is the implementation. I've never seen a microtransaction system that didn't use in-game advertising, for example.

    Most importantly, in theory, every player pays exactly what the game is worth for him, never less.

    I don't think that's accurate. The subscription model and f2p model involve players paying for fundamentally different things. The subscription model sells access to the world, and the f2p model sells items, most of which are either "status" items like the sparkle pony or "advancement" items like xp potions. So people (like me) who value the world more than they value status will be willing to pay more under a subscription model. The people willing to pay the most in the item shop model are people who value things like fast advancement, virtual status, and the like. (Obviously this would be different in a system that sells content rather than items).

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  19. Psychochild, I agree that the subscription model is not perfect when it comes to developer incentives. But I think it is light years better than an item shop. I migt make a post about dirty tricks. Then we can count them :)

    ---
    Rohan, I chose imprecise words. I wanted to say (and corrected the sentence) that these people obviously are willing to pay $15.
    And .. of course, everybody would prefer to pay less. That's not unique. Economic theory says that everybody has a certain maximum amount he is willing to pay for something, and I think that's a good model to use here.
    Somebody who would be willing to pay $100 a month for access to WoW, obviously has less problems with paying $15 than somebody who would is willing to pay a maximum of $15. But everybody who p(l)ays, by definition, is willing to pay at least $15.

    ---
    Tholtir, the immersion-problems have always been the main problem for me and it's nice to see I am not alone in that.
    I also agree mostly with your second paragraph. This is why I don't have as much problems with gammes that sell content - especially when the game is naturally structured in a way that content can be sold in modules. But character customization or even power-ups totally break immersion for me.

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  20. It's funny that you claim that the f2p business model creates bad incentives for the developers and the example is the sparkling pony from the major subscription MMO. :)

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  21. This irony occured to me, too, Kring :)

    But you have to admit that this pony is a wonderful example of how a perfect item shop works. It's a limited edition, highly controversial style, overly expensive, offers additional gameplay benefits etc.

    If I were the CEO, I'd be proud, seriously.

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  22. Very insightful post...

    One of my main concerns about F2P transactions is that they inhibit horizontal character progression. For instance in Guild Wars cosmetic items are really the *only* rewards after you reach level 20 (which can be done in a few hours following the release of Factions). If a cash shop allows people to buy the same cosmetic items that require in game achievements, then the possesion of such items becomes trivialised (as you point out with your fiery sword) and the only alternative the devs then have is to give rewards that increase a character's power, when as we know the game becomes increasingly fragmented and no community can form, since you can't play together across power levels.

    The sparkling pony episode in WoW is a good example. Looks aside, I think the reason for the derision from much of the community was that players feel that paying real money for cosmetic items is a *negative* achievement that advertises the fact that you are trying to buy status in the game, rather than earn it. From the perspective of people who do wish to pay a high price for such items - maybe the high price is part of the attraction as it often is for status items in RL.

    Guild wars has mostly been quite good in avoiding selling in game status items for real money - but the shining blade costumes etc are a worrying trend in the wrong direction I think. I have to wonder if the trend away from horizontal progession in the GW2 design is partly so that Arenanet can cash in on cosmetic items in the cash shop, since in this design they are no longer the main type of in game reward. Very much hope that I'm wrong and that GW2 will top out at max level without an endless gear progression...

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  23. My theory of the pony is still that it was designed for brainwashing.

    I think they've recognized that they leave a lot of money on the table with their subscription model. But they've also recognized that just selling epics in a store would produce a major outcry.

    WoW was the first subscription based game for a lot of people, probably for the huge majority. And all those people were "trained", by Blizzard, that the fee covers all costs. They had to break that up.

    Thus they've had to sell something that did not affect game play, not in the slightest way.
    -> It was a normal speed mount with a non-raid-reward look.

    The item had to be really expensive. There's no point in training people to expect micro transactions.
    -> The mount did cost quite some money. $20? $25?

    The item had to be so awesome that everyone and their mother buys it. The last thing they wanted is that the few people who use the cash shop were looked at as cheaters. Their best bet would be to sell something cute to women.
    -> The mount was a sparkling pony. It's hard to get any cuter... And you could even gift it to a woman, just in case there was a single woman on the planet who could withstand the lure of the pony...

    And the BoA nature even gave all those people a "rational" way to justify it in front of themselves.
    -> I'll never again have to buy a mount for an alt.

    It was a brilliant and successful move to open up our minds to accept further costs like premium accounts. Now if they would only use the money on the game...

    And a lot of people enjoyed their mount. I don't have a problem with them buying a mount if they enjoy that.

    And I don't think it's more immersion breaking to buy a pony in a cash shop then to get a rusty drake as a reward (drakes are sensitive beings, aren't they?) for cleaning out an ancient prison in a less efficient way (aka hard mode).

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  24. @Nils: You can make the activity that rewards the fiery sword much more credible and immersive.

    I think that would certainly be possible, but how many games bother? You're lucky in most if the random loot from a mob is vaguely plausible (a goblin carrying a spear drops a spear - great; an orc who was attacking you with a mace drops a magic sword - slightly weird, maybe he was carrying it around for a friend; a wolf drops a two-handed sword - yeah...)

    On the other hand, though it's all but impossible to make the action of using a credit card in a game immersive (unless there's a quest to deliver a 16 digit number and a date to a mysterious group of wizards who'll be so grateful that they shower you with rewards), like Psychochild says if you purchase a secondary in-game currency (let's say "diamonds" for the sake of argument), then I think it would be rather *more* immersive to say:
    "I desire a mighty flaming sword! I could go and kill a billion fire giants and hope that one just happens to be carrying a sword that's really much too small for a giant if you think about it but would be perfect for me, or! I could go to the blacksmith in town, and offer him three diamonds to forge for me a beautiful sword, and then take the sword to the wizard, and offer him five diamonds if he will imbue it with fearsome flaming magic!"

    (Bonus points if the blacksmith and wizard are other players)

    Course neither seems terribly likely, and we'll carrying on grinding random mobs for stuff in a sub game or using the oh-so-immersive "Add flaming sword to shopping trolley!" option in item stores, but hey, we can dream...

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  25. It's not a MMO, but I don't mind the system Valve uses for TF2. There are crates players can unlock with purchased keys which provide weapons, but they aren't unique weapons, though possibly rare. This means that spending money can help speed things up without giving anything that cannot be gained by patience. This plays into the player economy, where weapons can be scrapped or traded and used to make other weapons, so even a duplicate weapon has some value.

    Though there are the hats. Dear god there are a lot of hats. It's the equivalent of XP potions and cosmetic helm. Since all the hats look silly, they all just add to the sense of immersion: specifically a sense that you're fighting an endless and silly war for no apparent reason. It works better than it sounds, makes a lot more sense than your average WoW BG.

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  26. "In fact, people knew perfectly well that paying $15 a month for something that one does for at least 20 hours a month is just incredibly cheap."

    Nonsense. I can spend $15 on a few games on a Steam sale or at a store and play them for as long as I want, whenever I want. I got almost 200 great hours out of Torchlight and Final Fantasy X for a grand sum of $25 over three years. I just purchased the X-Com collection over at D2D for $5, and I'll get a ton more than a third of a month out of that purchase.

    No sub can match that. Subs make sense for some *people* (not even games; it's about the players and their schedule... and self control), sure, but they are no paragon of either virtue or value.

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  27. I didn't say that there isn't a cheaper activity out there, Tesh :)

    Of course, you can also have fun modeling funny stuff with old newspapers. That would be really cheap.

    Compared with going to the cinema, having an expresso with a friend or playing badminton, less than $1 per hour is very, very cheap.
    There's a reason many people without job were suspected of playing MMORPGs. I know I was happy to have such a cheap hobby when I was unemployed some years ago.

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