I’ve seen the “hourly up to a limit” sub concept before, and I think it has merit. It’s still only a partial solution, but it would definitely cast the net wider than existing business models.

I’m not totally convinced that splicing in a system of RMT for in-game boosts is the best way to go for a holistic solution, but it would definitely be the best complement to any sub or partial sub model. You’re right, it would take some number crunching, limits and tweaking to find a balance, but it’s definitely possible. Incorporating RMT would also capture the revenue stream that third party farmers are milking at the moment, or at least part of it.

The PP model works largely on the back of their unique design, where RMT is for cosmetic or “content unlock” materials, rather than “boots of bilging +5″ (a forum joke over there). It would take some tweaking to shoehorn it into a DIKU lineage game like EQ, WoW or even WAR. It’s also telling that they started as a sub model game, and they still maintain a pair of sub servers. Their microtransaction “doubloon” servers have seen the most growth, though. There’s definitely a market for both.

And aye, the Western market is notoriously… stubborn about this.

I suppose the part that confuses me most is the almost dogmatic view that Western designers and businesscritters have about the sub model. It’s certainly the best for some players. Thing is, it’s not the best for all players, and to make the market grow we need to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to play the games. It’s just completely baffling to me that companies are limiting themselves to the sub model when it’s demonstrably incomplete and flawed.

Ultimately, giving players options in-game tends to be a good idea to keep them playing. Giving them options when it comes to billing can both keep players playing and widen your player base. To my mind, it’s foolish not to try to open the gates a bit and offer different business models.

I suppose that if I didn’t like the “modern day MMO” as well as I do, I’d just let them merrily sabotage themselves. I do love Puzzle Pirates, but I likewise love WoW, albeit for different reasons. The MMO genre has a lot of potential… I’d hate to see it die to dogmatic delusions about “the way things work because that’s how they have always worked”.

Thanks again, Chris, and I agree, it will be interesting to see what EA and Blizzard do in the next few years (and the ripple effect from those big boys).

I touched upon a couple of these points (gently touched) in several articles in the past. The phantom $15 a month “value”. The perception that people with more real life currency are still at a disadvantage with someone who has more time in the treadmill style games. In short, I love your ideas.

I always thought that a RMT/Time based model with a “cap” of sorts would best serve the player. For example, if you play 40 hours in one month you hit the max cap of $20 sub fee. (arbitrary number). Conversely, you may only play 10 hours in one month and you pay $5. This would allow casuals to enjoy multiple titles and feel like they are getting fair value for their time spent.

Add to that a RMT model – you needed gold to buy an item you wanted? $500 gold is $5 (from the developer). You want an XP gain boost? $5 for a 5 hour 100% boost (this way you can keep up with your friends who play more. Want that item you have to have a different, funky graphic (same stats)? $2. Now in your 10 hours, you have gained as if you had played 30 (20 leveling, 10 grinding the gold) and are further ahead then you would be if you just played your 10 hours, and you could still manage your money to make it more worthwhile for the casual and not as much as a money sink, or, spend your way to keep up with the Joneses. Obviously the money and time amounts would have to be tweaked to be workable, as I just threw out arbitrary numbers.

There would definitely have to be other limits, such as how many of X item you could buy per time period (otherwise, everyone would just spend the max on boost XP at the beginning of the month, and hit the ceiling on their sub fee and grind away all month and “timers” on things purchased would have to be in combat only (to stop people from getting angry if a group member had to go AFK, etc)

I know you love the Puzzle Pirates and I was of course applying my examples to modern day MMO. Certainly better solutions are available if proper thought and math is put into it. For the record however, I find the mass MMO crowd doesn’t like the idea as much as the Asian gaming crowd and the first interesting test will be EA’s free online battlefield shooter with RMT to see if the FPS crowd can be won over. The second big test will be seeing what Blizzard does and how the response is to that.

To clarify a bit, I don’t think that “buying power” is valid, but as far as I’m concerned, under a subscription regime, those who have more free time to play in the game have more buying power than I do. From my casual standpoint, the imbalance is squarely in the favor of those who have more time than money.

As long as the subscription system is in place, RMT is the natural equalizer that fills out the demand/supply balance.

We need either a dual-currency model like Puzzle Pirates that lets players balance out the money/time curve based on the in-game RMT system, or we need to abolish the subscription model and charge per time spent actually playing the game.