Apparently, there’s been some kerfluffle about this little teaser from EA:
Bioware’s Star Wars MMO to use Microtransactions
So now they “misrepresented the facts” and are pulling back from a semi-controversial comment.
Wimps.
Since when did EA give a flying flan’s flagella about PR? This is the company that actively abuses its customers. (All in the name of antipiracy, of course… political parallels? Nope, not here, this is not the country you’re looking for.) They are also publicly traded, and utterly beholden to their shareholders. Some of those investors might actually be paying attention to the market, which has actively abused subscription based MMOs by anyone who isn’t Blizzard, and an economy that is rapidly approaching Depression era level meltdown.
In a world where Maple Story is profitable but Age of Conan and Warhammer are floundering, microtransactions make sense. I’d actually suggest a dual currency model where purchaseable items are cosmetic or frivolous rather than gameplay altering, but such a common sense moderate (and demonstrably profitable) plan just has no place in the rabid fanboy world of the internet.
Players are demanding another failure based on the subscription business model, all while whining that WoW is awful and that there’s no innovation in the MMO genre. Y’know who’s to blame for that? Yup, the idiots who complain about innovation and who keep their WoW subscription alive.
It’s the economy, stupid. Then again, when the U.S. is behind Croatia and Liechtenstein in mathematic comprehension, I guess this shouldn’t surprise me.
I agree that it makes economic sense because no-one seems to be able to compete with Warcraft in any meaningful way under the sub model. Blizzard owns that market so thoroughly it’s quite an embarrassment to the rest of the industry at this point, really.
I think whether it works depends on how it’s structured. There is a substantial mental hurdle to overcome after years and years of TOS’s grinding into gamer heads that RMT is wrong, cheating and so forth — I can see that being an obstacle if the MT shops offer non-fluff items (like XP enhancers or even stat gear items). It requires a change of mind about what is legitimate and what is not — and the resistance we’re seeing across the net about this reflects that.
Another issue is moving people generally off the dime about monthly subscriptions in general. Most other entertainment type services coming into the home are charged on a monthly plan basis — cable television, internet access, most cell phone plans, and so forth. Utilities charge on a usage basis, and some basic cell phone plans charge this way too (or for overages beyond plan limits). ISPs are talking about instituting caps for internet use per month, but the caps that have been mentioned are high enough that they seem like they would only impact high use bit torrent junkies and the like. So, quite apart from the fairness issue, there’s a mindset out there that accepts the monthly sub model, because it is parallel to other charges people are paying for entertainment-like services — people are used to having these on an all you can eat basis. So there would be a change required there, as well — making MMOs more like pay-per-view than like your cable or ISP bill.
It will be interesting to see how this develops.
I mentioned this elsewhere, but regarding the “fairness” of RMT, that the “black market” exists at all shows that there’s demand for powerleveling, gold selling and account transfers. That demand is driven by the same people who would complain about it in a perverse hypocrisy.
To my mind, it’s better to monetize that demand in-house rather than let third parties steal the money. Not only would your company save money by not fighting the pirates (and the law of diminishing returns), but it would make money from the demand that will always exist.
Regarding the monthly mentality, you’re right, that will take some time to overcome. That said, Guild Wars is successful. In a world where antipiracy is taking the form of online verification, it’s completely viable to just sell games as standalone playable products as they have long been sold (no subscription), but have online verification to fight piracy. The “MMO lite” services that GW offers are nice and fair compensation for requiring the game to be played online.
Imagine something like FFXII as a PC online verified single purchase game. People could play it like they do already on a console, but they have to be logged in to prove they are legitimate customers. In compensation for this annoying barrier to playing the product, the company provides an Auction House and a grouping interface, so another real player could step in for a secondary character if they felt like it.
You’re right, it will mean a restructuring of game mechanics and account mechanics, but not only is it possible, but I believe that it’s inevitable and optimal. The market must evolve or die. The subscription market is saturated, and WoW has massive leverage to kill new games. PC games are dying to pirates. The black market is only “illegal” because the businesses deem it so.
If new MMOs embrace the legitimate demands that are out there and make an honest appraisal of the market, there will have to be changes, whether it hurts the feelings of the internet howlers or not.
/hijack
Ahah! So you DO have a blog! I knew I’d track you down someday!
/hijack
Nothing to see here, move along.
😛
I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little blog, too!
Hahahahah if my coffee had still been warm I’d have sprayed it. I am going to have to find a way to get that into a post title. Wizard of Oz quotes (especially that one) are win.
I haven’t reached a conclusion yet about whether it’s desirable or optimal overall. I’ll agree that it may be the only viable path ahead for the time being for new games, given WoW’s domination of the subscription market currently. But I have to consider more fully the ups and downs of true item shops (that is, RMT shops offering true advantages for spending cash — XP enhancers, items and the like) before deciding whether something that appears inevitable is also desirable. Those don’t always go together, really.
True… add the qualifier: “desirable for a significant portion of the market to make business based on it profitable”. I’d never want subscriptions to go away completely because some people do get great value out of them. Thing is, a diversified market is a healthy market, more or less. All subscriptions all the time doesn’t work in the MMO market.
I am strongly against RMT and micro-transactions. But both are actually very different. I also agree it is better if the company making the game gets the money than some asian or whatever RMT company.
But I would hate it if I can buy armor pieces for money, or extra dungeons or something like that. I would not support such a model, be it innovative or not, I would rather call it a method to demand even more money in a tricky way.
Guild Wars already has an online shop, selling extra char slots and some items from the “GW 1 million” edition.
So far they have managed to answer demands of the community without getting too close in the item mall driven style of some other “free” asian MMOs. Seems that some of their bosses and the community as well does not hold that model too high in regard.
In general, I’ve not looked terribly kindly on “buying power”, but at the same time, I prefer to give players the option of trading time for money and vice versa. That widens the player base and provides options for when life circumstances change for a given customer. Dual currency models like that of Puzzle Pirates do that very admirably.
I think much of the current complaint comes from those who have an overabundance of time, and they consider that to be somehow “greater” or “more pure” than a customer who has more money than time who wants the same game experience. If “RMT” items are available to both types of player, those with more money than time and those with more time than money, there’s no issue; both players have access to everything, their journey is all that differs. Bluntly, it’s no business of any player to define another player’s journey in an MMO.
I don’t look kindly on imbalanced weaponry or other tactical advantages that are exclusively available to either style of player. That’s actually why I’m a proponent of RMT and microtransactions; they level the playing field.
This is true of cosmetic items as well as “gameplay” items. Give both types of players, those with time and those with money, the ability to get whatever they want in the game.
The problem I have with that reasoning is that it doesn’t “feel” right to me.
If a game, for example, requires you to throw 400 baseballs through a hoop to advance to the next level, then it seems “fair” to me that everyone needs to actually throw the 400 baseballs through the hoop. Some people may have more time and therefore get to the 400 baseball threshold sooner than others, but still everyone needs to throw the 400 baseballs.
If you start selling items to people so that they, in effect, only need to throw 300 baseballs through the hoop, that feels like they are playing by a different set of rules — because in fact they *are*, in effect, because the effective threshold for leveling is different for them than it is for everyone else.
To me it “feels” fair that everyone has to throw 400 baseballs because it is the same threshold for everyone. I agree that some may get there faster than others due to pouring more time into the game, but I tend to accept that as a fact of life: someone who spends more time practicing a musical instrument will also advance faster at that, and the same holds true for a sport or virtually anything else in life. It seems “fair” that someone who devotes more time gets returns faster than someone who does not.
This is, I think, the core of the issue with having “real” items in item shops beyond fluff. It “levels the playing field” between those with more time and those with less time by making a different ruleset, in effect, for those with less time.
Ah, but you see, throwing those 400 baseballs takes time. Some players would take an hour to do that, some a month. Charging “buffet style” access to the game means that there is already a critical imbalance in favor of those with more time.
You’re right, those who spend more time will gain more benefit, but when your business model charges per month regardless of how much time a player actually throws those baseballs, you’ve handicapped those who simply can’t spend as much time bellying up to the buffet.
If you charge players a flat $5 per 400 baseballs, no matter how long it takes them to throw them, that’s a level playing field. Now, translate that to MMO monetization.
Baseballs (and the gaming equivalent) are event driven. They are about what your character has accomplished, not how much time they have spent. If the metric is “how much have you learned” or “how well do you play”, time based monetization is already charging for the wrong thing.
Charging for events or discrete accomplishments is more akin to microtransactions or the GW model than a subscription model. I can agree that player accomplishment “means more” if you actually do it and learn the requisite skills, but time in-game is not a measure of skill, and time in-game is what subscription models and the synergistic loot/level treadmills are built on.
Of course, at the same time, I really don’t care how a player comes by their skill. If a player is a crack shot in TF2 or Counterstrike, and rules the battlefield in their first game out, does it really matter that Veteran Bill over there had to spend three months getting to the same capability?
It’s “put up or shut up” in a skill based world. Modern MMOs are all about punching the clock and grinding out that elite faction recipe, or grinding a raid until that magic drop. In a skill-based meritocracy, throwing those 400 baseballs means jack squat if you still can’t hit the side of a barn. If Ed the phenom comes in and nails a fly on the wall each time he throws his first ten balls, what then? What price, skill?
Indeed, you’re right, if an MMO world and its bragging rights are based on just putting that time in, there’s absolutely no point to being able to bypass it. I submit that the whole subscription model is built on sucking up players’ time, rather than giving them meaningful ways to measure their skills against other players. The purest form of an MMO is PvP. Why bother playing with other players in the first place? There, skill should rule the roost.
That it doesn’t is a failure of the game design and the subscription model that supports a time>skill mentality.
Of course, some players like that, which is why I’m not saying that subscription models should be banished. They just aren’t the epitome of design, and I don’t think that they really are doing a service to the potential of MMOs as a genre.
We ssssseeee you.
You have just violated the interwebs for making too much sense and shall be punished accordingly.
Jason (resident drunken idiot of Channel Massive)
Ruh roh, Rhaggy!
Can I balance it out with a rant about the totally hawt chick in Tabula Rasa?
Hmm.
Food for thought, but I can’t really say I agree at this point.
There is no skill in MMOs, generally speaking. That is the same for microtransaction MMOs as it is for subscription model MMOs. Changing the business model doesn’t make the game about skill. It simply creates different time hurdles, and the games are *all* about time invested at this point. So when you allow people to advance at two different paces, and the game is about time invested rather than “skill”, then you’ve created two different rulesets, and I don’t think I could ever get comfortable with that. Everyone should be playing under the same rules — at least as I see it.
If a game were pure PvP and the PvP were based purely on skill (as in an FPS — no class balance issues, no gear impact, no level impact), then I guess it wouldn’t matter, but at the same time there would be nothing to spend RMT on, because it would all be about skill and not anything RMT could purchase. This is what GW’s PvP is like, by and large. GW only went to the RMT package sales model after Arena.Net was finished with releasing boxes — the business model for GW was about releasing fresh boxes on a very fast timetable. I have no issues with that, frankly, and I think it’s a great business model that doesn’t really involve RMT or microtransactions.
I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be able to get my head around the idea that people should be allowed to advance through games at different speeds based on the amount of RL cash they spend. Again, if the issue is that the games shouldn’t be based around time investment, that’s fine … but the solution to that isn’t creating a dual speed system based on RMT.
I have no problem whatsoever with Guild Wars’ version of microtransactions — selling boxes (or digital downloads), selling character slots, the Game of the Year weapon skins, even the skill packs. They’re never selling anything that “unbalances” the game.
So when you allow people to advance at two different paces, and the game is about time invested rather than “skill”, then you’ve created two different rulesets, and I don’t think I could ever get comfortable with that.
But people are already “allowed” to advance at different paces. Some kid can put in a whole helluva lot more time than I can, therefore he will advance at a different pace than me, right? Our precious “Rest XP” we love so much allows players who have saved up Rest XP to advance at a faster pace than someone who’s burned all his Rest XP up. Powergamers will *always* burn through levels faster than any normal gamer. And that’s all without any sense of microtransactions or RMT whatsoever.
Is a businessman with limited time to play who buys XP Potions any different from the unemployed kid who power-games 18 hours per day in their effect on MY gameplay? NO.
PvP is the *only* time anyone else’s practices has the chance to affect my personal gameplay. If I don’t buy Stamina Savers from the Item Mall and my opponent does, he wins. But guess what? In a subscription MMO if my opponent has grinded out rep to get all the cool PvP gear and I haven’t, he wins. The only real difference is the amount of time vs. cash it cost my opponent. For MY game, the battle lasted the exact same amount of time and had the exact same outcome: I lost. I also have the exact same options my opponent did: spend the time to grind the rep for gear, or plop some cash down for Stamina Savers.
No, people are not allowed to advance at different paces, when you look at it in terms of game time — everyone needs to put in the same game time to advance (unless they break the rules). People have different amounts of RL time to invest … but that’s the same as with anything else. As I noted above, someone with more time to invest in playing the guitar is also going to advance faster as a guitarist, it’s how things are generally in life, not just in video games.
I’ll be posting about this tomorrow in my own blog, but to be honest I struggle with accepting that someone can buy progress in a game where progress is relevant. I could more easily accept a “pay as you go” system, where it’s like a utility: you pay for your use of the network. But a system where some can advance “faster” in terms of time spent in the game than others … that’s very difficult for me. And I say that as a low time gamer myself — I am a 15 hour to 20 hour per week gamer.
Anyway I will think and reflect and sleep and then post something on my own blog tomorrow that you all will probably really disagree with … unless sleep changes my mind dramatically. 🙂
Let’s be clear – only haters are complaining about RMT for ‘fluff’. But RMT for ‘power advancing’ stuff is retarded because we all know that the company will design their game around it, turning it into a massive grind to force people to buy stuff to increase their power.
So, I’m fine with EA just adding in a ‘fluff store’ or whatever, especially if this means there’s no subscription fee. However, if you advance faster in exchange for money, I’m sorry but that’s just not going to catch on here in the West.
“There is no skill in MMOs, generally speaking.”
This is important.
We’re basically admitting that the subscription games as they are are about time investment, little else. If we can accept that, what is the difference between some kid who grinds for three months and spends $45 and the businessman who pays $45 up front for a character that’s equivalent to the kid’s?
To the business, there’s no difference. They have $45 from each player. If anything, the businessman is a better customer, because he’s lower overhead.
To the players, there’s no difference because the end result is the same: an advanced character. The only people complaining about it at that point are those who seem to think that “putting hours in” is the “one true path”.
It seems to me that the businessman put his hours in at work.
And Melf, the games are already massive grinds. That’s the inevitable result of basing your game design on time rather than skill.
The idea that the pace of progress of other players has some effect on your enjoyment is bizarre to me. If you’re in a guild that is giving you grief for not keeping pace, you’re in the wrong guild, pure and simple.
Brendan’s also right in that a microtransaction game will no more be based on skill than a sub game. That’s my point; it’s all about time. Time and money are interchangeable, that’s the point of most monetary systems.
The only reason that a business model taking that into account “wouldn’t catch on” is because we’re buying the Emperor’s new clothes. If the businessman wants to bypass the “leveling grind” to get to “the real game” at the level cap, where skill once again takes precedence, what possible business is it of any other player?
Even Blizzard designs for the endgame, but the perverse “fairness” doctrine (nicely subverted by their own Refer-a-Friend trick) demands players “pay their dues” by grinding through the content that Blizzard themselves have all but disowned.
This also brings me back to Puzzle Pirates. The gameplay there is skill based. Their dual currency monetization works because people want the stuff in the game, almost all of which is purely cosmetic. It’s possible, but the audience isn’t the basement dweller hooked on WoW. Again, that’s the point. You can’t compete head to head with WoW.
There’s also the GW model. That would fit extremely well with SWTOR, since they seem to think that it’s essentially a series of sequels to Knights of the Old Republic.
Yes, there are a lot of people drinking the kool-aid, and a business model that took this into account wouldn’t hit WoW numbers. That doesn’t matter. Keeping up with the Joneses (or Blizzard) might be a national pastime, but just as it’s not healthy for the economy at large (McMansions, anyone?), it’s not healthy for the game industry. Yes, it might mean altering your business plan, but if you don’t, you’ll break on the dark shores of Northrend anyway.
If games are fun, people will come, especially as the gaming demographic and economic forces put the squeeze on the buffet subscription model. If the game is profitable, it’s a success, pure and simple.
I point out again, the demand is there. It’s evident by the gold sellers and black market. Grabbing those people and making them legit customers as well as grabbing the people who don’t want to subscribe would be netting those who aren’t being serviced in the first place.
Yes, people DO progress at different paces because there is NOT a set amount of time per level. You and I could each spend one hour in-game but get two entirely different things accomplished, or perhaps nothing accomplished. Our progress would be different. Some people also maximize their XP by researching which areas or mobs in which zones (or which quests) give the maximum XP so they would advance much quicker than I would even if I spent the entire hour doing quests the way I normally would. I get where you’re trying to go with your argument, but the only way I’ll fully agree with it is if MMORPGs had a *specific* time requirement involved, such as “it takes 6 hours of actual play-time to earn a level.” But they don’t, and never will. And ultimately my point of “who gives a damn if it doesn’t affect your personal game?” still stands. Why this need to race or “keep up” especially with total strangers? It’s my $15/month (or mystery amount in an Item Shop) and my time I’m putting in at the keyboard to enjoy the game. I couldn’t care less what someone else is doing or how they’re doing it unless it directly affects my game experience. If you’re basing the value of your $15/month versus how someone else uses their $15/month then I don’t even know what to say to that other than suggesting some introspection and evaluation of priorities.
Someone could spend (making up an arbitrary amount) $200 for a level capped and raid-ready character in, say WoW. Would that affect your experience at all? You’d never even know unless they told you. Time eventually comes into the equation again because simply *having* that character bought and paid for doesn’t mean the guy can actually play it and jump into a raid the next day. He’ll have to put some time into learning to play the character. Perhaps less, or even much less, time than you or I would if we worked that character up through the levels but once more if it isn’t affecting my personal game why should I get upset? I’m not racing anyone, especially not some complete stranger in some online game. Unless I’m playing an actual racing game…
If the micro-transaction items in SW:TOR provide the player with a game play advantage over other players that don’t pay, then it can kiss my ass goodbye right now. If however the RMTs only provide a cosmetic difference, then I welcome it. Who knows, I might even buy a pink Yoda mini pet 😉
“but to be honest I struggle with accepting that someone can buy progress in a game where progress is relevant”
Good point Brendan – question is – how is that relevance applied? To you measure your enjoyment (and investment) in a game based of how you are progressing AGAINST other players? Or just base it off how much fun you are having in your own space?
That’s the rub. It is a perception in the gamingspace that some players judge their “fun” by how far ahead of everyone else they are. That is the camp of people who typically hate microtransactions.
If people focused on their own experiences, and not on other people’s experiences, it would be less of an issue.
Counter argument to that, Tesh plays SWOTOR 15 hours a week and I can only play five. A month or two in, we can’t play with each other anymore. That sucks for both of us. So he goes out and makes new friends and stops posting on my blog.
Now, if I can buy 300% xp potions – heck, I’m all over it. Remember how much “friends” play a part of MMO choices.
Would that piss off Tesh because he had to play 10 extra hours per week to be at the same space in the game as I – where I played 1/3 less but paid an extra $15? Does he look at me with disgust?
Nope, because it’s a game, and now we can actually play that game together – regardless of the differences in our availability.
Honestly, who can get mad at providing a better level of access to all gamers?
(On a side note – I would prefer levelling just goes away in MMO’s in the traditional sense and just use gear + skill + experience as the difference makers, so regardless if I have played 1 day or 100, I could play with friends and contribute meaningfully – but I don’t see that happening)
@Crimson: How, in a PVE game, can anyone get any sort of advantage over you? It isn’t a contested experience!
(PVP, I agree with you 1 meeelion %)
*nods sagely in agreement with Chris*
I’ve alluded to this somewhere, but I think it’s lost in the shuffle. PvP absolutely needs to be on a level playing field. Thing is, I don’t think that a monetization scheme, whether sub or micro or dual currency, really has any place in defining that. Game design should provide that level playing field. That’s what Arenas are for.
If it doesn’t, and a micro/DC model gives cash the edge in PvP, yes, that is monumentally Bad Design.
That said, PvE should be about playing with friends or playing solo. That’s the point of an MMO. (Well, maybe not strictly the solo part, but even solo players group up sometimes.) The sub model in that case is a barrier to game design when dealing with players with different schedules, as Chris rightly notes. (But don’t think you can get rid of my comments on your blog that easily, Chris.)
Of course, if a game design is truly levelless and skill based, then we’re back to the CounterStrike/Team Fortress 2 PvP. They get away with free online play, server maintenance notwithstanding, largely because their “service” is more matchmaking than “persistent world”. A levelless MMO where anyone can play together at any time could go with a sub fee without raising my hackles, since I can buy the argument for server maintenance. Of course, $15/month is steep for that, but still, I wouldn’t be against it on principle.
Then again, since Guild Wars provides that sort of small group/matchmaking MMOish experience, I see no real need for the sub model, but perhaps that hinges on the gameplay experience once again. (Seeing as how some don’t really see GW as a true MMO… and there’s some truth to that; it’s more of a grouping interface for an online RPG with a shared economy but no shared
world”.)
Oh, and regarding the “catch up” 300% XP potions that Chris suggests, I might even just buy that sort of thing for my friends, making the game even more about a shared experience. I just bought three copies of Guild Wars for just that sort of reason, actually. I want to share time in a game with friends, so I spent money on it.
Great point about purchasing things for your friends. When re-reading my discussion points I realized that the two main camps were a) People with more time than money, and b) people with more money than time.
I completely neglected c) People with no time, and no money.
To which your situation, purchasing for friends, addresses nicely.
Indeed, I totally missed that as well. It was your comment about catching up that make me think of it. If these MMO things really are about friends playing together, I think that sort of thing would be, if not common, at least significant.
http://www.navyfield.eu/
Register an account and what you can buy to enhance your gaming experience in the “shop”. Much faster xp, more credits, better ships, better crewmembers.
I really like to play Navyfield occasionally, but you might get the idea why I am not a fan of micro-transactions.
OK, now how about only “cosmetic” upgrades? So far I have not yet seen any game that did not lure players into their shop with free special offers, only 1$ and things like that.
I asked a friend how much he spent on Navyfield so far, and voila… it is close to the WoW subscription fee if you break it down. He says he needs it to stay competitive in his fleet, I have no idea if this is true, but well. I am only level 16 so far, started playing some days ago, and immediately thought of our discussion here after a while.
I think this model works. I despise some design decisions regarding the power-up items in the shop… but this game would be already done with a forced subscription fee.
The hardcore gamers finance me, the new and still casual player. But there is potential to catch me and other gamers and milk some cash by giving incentives to buy this or that… it does not cost much money, after all. Do you see the carrot?
Hm, I so love GW’s pay once, play forever (till the servers go down) business model…^^ but it cannot be applied to every game.
If someone tries to find a point in my posting, I am just musing about the issue. 🙂
“Staying competitive” as a PvP issue, yes, things can get silly quickly. If someone feels a need to buy stuff to keep pace in PvE, it just means they are in the wrong guild/fleet. Keeping up with the Joneses isn’t healthy.
I just tried Puzzle Pirates. I think you are somewhat involved in the game.
Actually, the micro transaction system is not that different from Navyfield. Except the important difference that you cannot buy items that give you an edge,
PPirates seems to be more polished and ambitious, my first impression. I was positively surprised.
My thoughts: The perfect game would mix Guild Wars with Puzzle Pirates, Tanks and SS uniforms, because they are so cool.
I hereby claim the right to name this ultimate game “SS Pirate Panzer Wars”.
Involved? If by that you mean I’ve played it for years, have my own crew (guild) on two different servers as well as the same pirate name on every server, and am active in the forum community, then yes, I’m involved. 😉
Hmm… SS Pirate Panzer Wars, eh? Would there be a hex-based tactical minigame? If so, I’m sold.
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