Let's debate MMO payment models

[CivCube]

Traditional subscription: Paying a certain amount every month only works if there's ongoing development. If the developer isn't putting out enough content, the players get screwed. That's why I haven't played any MMOs until now. It doesn't seem fair to pay $15 a month so that the devs can force you to buy more expansions.

Buy to play (Guild Wars 2): Can work if there's enough to do for while. If expansions cost as much as the launch, then you end up paying the equivalent of a lifetime subscription over the course of a few years. Definitely not as big a hit on the wallet.

Free to play: There's a fine line between TF2's hat store and just nickel-and-diming the players. For the most part, it seems to be a different word for trial period when it comes to MMOs, e.g. Lord of the Rings Online's "play the equivalent of the tutorial and then sub for the rest of the game". Combine this with making micropayments for every new zone and you might end up paying more than if you subbed in the first place. Again, though, you're not forced to pay every month, which can be a plus.

In the end, I don't think there's really that much difference in the models, although I think more companies are going with F2P.

 

[GoodGame]

Traditional subscription: Paying a certain amount every month only works if there's ongoing development. If the developer isn't putting out enough content, the players get screwed. That's why I haven't played any MMOs until now. It doesn't seem fair to pay $15 a month so that the devs can force you to buy more expansions.

Buy to play (Guild Wars 2): Can work if there's enough to do for while. If expansions cost as much as the launch, then you end up paying the equivalent of a lifetime subscription over the course of a few years. Definitely not as big a hit on the wallet.

Free to play: There's a fine line between TF2's hat store and just nickel-and-diming the players. For the most part, it seems to be a different word for trial period when it comes to MMOs, e.g. Lord of the Rings Online's "play the equivalent of the tutorial and then sub for the rest of the game". Combine this with making micropayments for every new zone and you might end up paying more than if you subbed in the first place. Again, though, you're not forced to pay every month, which can be a plus.

In the end, I don't think there's really that much difference in the models, although I think more companies are going with F2P.

Why has Free-2-play become more popular?

1. You don't need to produce a AAA property that people in a weak economy might not want to pay $60 for the files and their first month. They also allow a game to unveil during beta and actually collect income from players, since expectations aren't as high, for at least the initial versions. This is similar to the indie crowd-sourcing model which as become very popular.

2. Micropayments mean people only pay for content that they want. If they don't enjoy the full game, they only have to pay as much for it as they want. If a player drops from the game, they at least might get a favorable opinion of the company/game, and spread the word.

3. It allows monthly MMOs that started as AAA property (attempts) continue on if there is still some player interest. Figure that there are people who just follow one or two MMOs a month, and little else. However those gamers might not have absolute loyalty to any one title, so they might jump from title to title (usually looking for the WoW killer). Eventually older titles lose out on this and going micropayment/free2play lets them continue maintaining most of the original fan-base at least as casual players, while drawing in more casual players through the free2play model.

4. Free2play is compatible with monthly subscriptions. Star Trek:Online is an example of that. You can actually have the two running simultaneously on the same game servers. This is important with ST:O because people bought life-time subscriptions for the game.


The biggest con of Free2play is the bang for buck might not be so great, or even unbalanced. E.g. the "pay2win" model.

 

[CivCube]

You don't need to produce a AAA property that people in a weak economy might not want to pay $60 for the files and their first month. They also allow a game to unveil during beta and actually collect income from players, since expectations aren't as high, for at least the initial versions. This is similar to the indie crowd-sourcing model which as become very popular.

Minecraft being the big example. One could make the case that it's also an MMO that happens to have lots of instances.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Guild Wars 2 people have said that there will be big expansions. Free.

My favorite system is still Buy to Play. It means you put out some money, significant amount at first, and that means, as in the case of GW2, that the things you pay to buy are really not as obvious as in completely free to play games. In GW2, if I see a super colourful character with epic equipment, I have no way of knowing if they paid for stuff, or acquired it through play. In Free to Play games, a lot of the time, you can tell who never put a dime on their character just by looking at it.

 

[Rooftrellen]

I'd rather just pay a subscription and be done with it.

The other models, in every case I've ever seen, lead to a difference between those that pay and those that don't in important aspects of the game.

A game is less fun when the person standing next to you has an advantage in the game because he paid more. For all the effort put into an MMORPG, for instance, to get classes balanced, it seems odd to introduce an imbalance.

Now, if it's just cosmetics and nothing else, so no advantage to the game, I have no problem with buy2play or free2play. I just don't know that I can think of a situation in which there are no bonuses that give some sort of advantage.

 

[History_Buff]

Buy to play (Guild Wars 2): Can work if there's enough to do for while. If expansions cost as much as the launch, then you end up paying the equivalent of a lifetime subscription over the course of a few years. Definitely not as big a hit on the wallet.

Come again? GW1 released 3 expansions, 2 of which were actually games in their own right, but were effectively expansions for most players. I don't know if EotN was cheaper, but I'll assume it was not. These were released over the course of approximately two and a half years.

So if you bought Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and EotN separately, that would have cost you 4x$60 at most, or $240. At $15/month, that's the equivalent of 16 months of a subscription fee. What you actually got was more like 36 months, if you played it continuously. And that ignores any initial buy in cost for your subscription based game; I believe WoW's expansions all were sold for a fixed amount, though I don't know how much.

In the case of Guild Wars, there was a fair bit of content being added periodically, particularly right at the end of the life cycle. Now, I've never actually played WoW myself, so I can't make a proper comparison between the two, but it would seem to me that Guild Wars was a better buy (provided you were into PvP, which is really what the game was about).

Really, when I look back on it, I'm not quite sure how it wound up being so profitable for ArenaNet that I figure it must have been for GW2 to have been made the way it was (awesomely).

The other models, in every case I've ever seen, lead to a difference between those that pay and those that don't in important aspects of the game.

This is my hesitancy for microtransactions as well, but in most games I've played it seems to have been well managed. Certainly in GW2, all you can really buy is a time advantage, which I don't have a problem with.

 

[Rub'Rum]

This is my hesitancy for microtransactions as well, but in most games I've played it seems to have been well managed. Certainly in GW2, all you can really buy is a time advantage, which I don't have a problem with.

Pretty much. GW2 has the most acceptable model for me right now.

 

[CivCube]

So if you bought Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and EotN separately, that would have cost you 4x$60 at most, or $240. At $15/month, that's the equivalent of 16 months of a subscription fee. What you actually got was more like 36 months, if you played it continuously. And that ignores any initial buy in cost for your subscription based game; I believe WoW's expansions all were sold for a fixed amount, though I don't know how much.

That sounds about right. A lifetime sub for The Secret World is $250 (base price included). If an MMO keeps going beyond 16 months, that basically makes a subscription game buy-to-play. The only difference is that you have to pay that much up front.

You bring up a good point about PvP. That makes Guild Wars something more akin to matchmaking multiplayer. There might not be as much quest content per se (although Rub'Rum says in GW2, there will be) but it's more than made up for by persistent game support and tweaking. That alone makes GW2 very appealing as a MMO. Combine that with the extra quest and zone content they're putting in anyway and you have to wonder why more devs aren't doing this. The only difficulty comes from having a large enough player base to create a large enough cash pool.

 

[Rooftrellen]

This is my hesitancy for microtransactions as well, but in most games I've played it seems to have been well managed. Certainly in GW2, all you can really buy is a time advantage, which I don't have a problem with.

I've never looked back since I found out you can buy storage space. I played GW1 up to the point that I found out storage space isn't a luxury, but pretty well requires, and being limited to 8 characters left me locked out of people in my alliance doing things more than once, as I was left without a necro or rit, which seemed unpopular in my alliance for some reason, so I either had to get into those impromptu groups early or not at all, unless I wanted to sink more money into the game.

In both cases, people that paid got a game advantage people who didn't pay couldn't have.

As I understand, gems in GW2 can also be sold, so buying them with real cash can be transferred into pure cash in the game pretty well, if at the mercy of the market.

Even one strike is too much for me, but GW2 got a full 3.

That being said, where anyone draws a line in the sand is up to them, and I fully admit mine is pretty much right at zero tolerance for in game advantages.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I was in your camp before. Never wanted to play a game where there were micro-transactions. I just wanted to pay and be done with it, like you said. I don't like to compromise, for me it's, give me everything or nothing. GW2 was different though. None of it seemed like real advantage. It's just... time. I never feel like I have to pay money to get anything that I would need. I just need to take the time and make choices. I don't need more bank space, or character space yet. I could easily get some through gems if I wanted a bit more.

 

[Thrawn]

I'm pretty ok with paying a subscription fee, if I enjoy the game and feel like I'm getting my moneys worth. When compared with something like going to the movies, it can actually be pretty cheap entertainment.

Not really a fan of microtransactions, mostly for reasons already mentioned. They just invariably seem to end up being paying for an advantage, if not out right paying to win. It will be interesting to see how Path of Exiles microtransaction system goes, given that they've specifically stated you will only be able to purchase cosmetic stuff.

 

[Rooftrellen]

I don't know if anyone else has heard of it, but there is an MMORPG being devloped by an independent developer with a crazy experienced staff, and last I heard, their plan (and they don't have a publisher yet, so it could change when they do) was to offer all three styles of payment, which could be interesting to say the least.

Something like F2P would have a token system for buying high end items or going to new worlds, and those tokens would drop rarely from enemies or be gained from quests, but subscribers would never have to give or get those tokens. It simply wouldn't exist for them. They also said they'd like to have a buy2play option, but I never saw much else other than they planned to support that payment method as well.

I can't be bothered to find it right now on their forums, but it's Citadel of Sorcery, if anyone wants to take a look.

 

[Sonereal]

The kickstarter for CoS in case anyone was interested.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmomagic/citadel-of-sorcery-mmorpg

 

[History_Buff]

That sounds about right. A lifetime sub for The Secret World is $250 (base price included). If an MMO keeps going beyond 16 months, that basically makes a subscription game buy-to-play. The only difference is that you have to pay that much up front.

Ah, I didn't realize there were one-time lifetime subscription fees offered by some games. Looks like I did math for nothing.

As I understand, gems in GW2 can also be sold, so buying them with real cash can be transferred into pure cash in the game pretty well, if at the mercy of the market.

There's something very important people need to realize before they talk about the gem store in GW2: yes, you can use real world cash to buy gems, but you can also use in game gold to do so.

So while many luxury items like extra storage space, character slots, and character makeover kits (I'm calling them luxury goods because I've never really seen the need for them two months in) can only be bought through the gem store, you can get all the gems you need from in game gold. And while the exchange rate is inflating somewhat quickly (implying the vast majority of people are in fact buying gems with gold, rather than real cash), I've never had a problem affording the things I did want from the gem store. And that's spending only in game gold.

Again, the ONLY thing that GW2 microtransactions buy you is a time advantage. And given that top level gear is very easy to come by anyway (by design), then this doesn't offer much of an advantage.



Also, am I the only one who's sort of sick of MMOs in the usual high-fantasy setting, with dice roll for damage ranges, type games? I really, really, really want to see an MMO built around FPS combat.

 

[Sonereal]

They tried. They range from "meh" to "awful".

 

[History_Buff]

Examples?

 

[Sonereal]

Fallen Earth was a post-apocalyptic MMO FPS. While the faction idea was very interesting, I couldn't stand playing the game. Combat was stale and VERY much against how I thought the game would play. It was basically just your run of a mill FPS, only you had guns that you can actually aim!!!!lololo. Too bad that the damage calculation is no different.

And if that isn't bad enough, the camera control was awful. Probably one of the worst I've dealt with in a MMO or FPS.

There was also All Points Bulletin, which leans more to a FPS. This game is meh, but it suffers from the same thing Spore suffers from, hype. I can't help playing it and thinking "this could've been so much better".

 

[Rooftrellen]

The kickstarter for CoS in case anyone was interested.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mmomagic/citadel-of-sorcery-mmorpg

I was trying to be a little more subtle

Ah, I didn't realize there were one-time lifetime subscription fees offered by some games. Looks like I did math for nothing.



There's something very important people need to realize before they talk about the gem store in GW2: yes, you can use real world cash to buy gems, but you can also use in game gold to do so.

So while many luxury items like extra storage space, character slots, and character makeover kits (I'm calling them luxury goods because I've never really seen the need for them two months in) can only be bought through the gem store, you can get all the gems you need from in game gold. And while the exchange rate is inflating somewhat quickly (implying the vast majority of people are in fact buying gems with gold, rather than real cash), I've never had a problem affording the things I did want from the gem store. And that's spending only in game gold.

Again, the ONLY thing that GW2 microtransactions buy you is a time advantage. And given that top level gear is very easy to come by anyway (by design), then this doesn't offer much of an advantage.



Also, am I the only one who's sort of sick of MMOs in the usual high-fantasy setting, with dice roll for damage ranges, type games? I really, really, really want to see an MMO built around FPS combat.

Any advantage is an advantage. If you can finish the game a month sooner, you got an advantage, which is too much for me to swallow. I know I'm a pretty hard liner on that, and I haven't found an MMO I really like in years due to that.

As I understand, the GW2 advantages are greater than the GW1 advantages, not just more character slots and bank space, but the ability to sell gems for cash in game as well...so if GW1 went too far for me, I think GW2 does as well.

As someone else has already pointed out MMOFPS's, I will say I would like to see more done outside of the fantasy world, still. I like RPG's, so I'd take an MMORPG set in a different world. A sci fi MMORPG would make sense. The only difference between science fiction and fantasy is the explanation.

A wizard waved his hand and created a fireball.

A scientist flipped the switch on the machine which reversed the spin of every 4th quark in the air, creating a ball of fire which shot out of the machine.

Developers still have their head so far up the backside of WoW that we can't get an MMO that isn't based on combat, though, let alone get away from the easy answer of fantasy.

I will admit it would take a lot of work, though. It's easy to explain anything you want to do in fantasy, but in other settings, it can be a bit more of an issue, being bound by logic a bit more (or in some cases much more).

 

[History_Buff]

Any advantage is an advantage. If you can finish the game a month sooner, you got an advantage, which is too much for me to swallow. I know I'm a pretty hard liner on that, and I haven't found an MMO I really like in years due to that.

Have you played any of them?

Getting top gear faster in GW2 is really only applicable if you don't want to play the PvE side. I mean, I got it in 3 weeks, and I wasn't trying hard at all. And skipping the PvE isn't really an advantage, so much as a loss for you, since that's half the game.

And even then, you only really need the high end gear for the more formal PvP matches. The World vs World system scales you up to level 80 (somewhat imperfectly) anyway.

I really don't see what sort of advantage you get, other than "I paid more to enjoy this game less".

As I understand, the GW2 advantages are greater than the GW1 advantages, not just more character slots and bank space, but the ability to sell gems for cash in game as well...so if GW1 went too far for me, I think GW2 does as well.

You can indeed sell gems for in game gold, but that gold won't buy you stats. All it will get you is cosmetics.

 

[GoodGame]

Also, am I the only one who's sort of sick of MMOs in the usual high-fantasy setting, with dice roll for damage ranges, type games? I really, really, really want to see an MMO built around FPS combat.

There's many of those, on Steam and elsewhere. Planetside 2 is basically that.