Yay, we have another slippery slope bit of HWFO to keep November interesting before Deathwing dominates blogs. (Yes, those are icons I created for Puzzle Pirates. Whee for self-promotion!)
Oh, right. Context. Here, have a few links. (These cover a range of opinions, so I’m not endorsing any particular viewpoint but my own.)
Ravious, Syp, Arkenor, Spinks, Tobold, Hunter
So apparently, Warhammer Online intends to sell a thingamawidget that lets player characters advance a single level (out of 40 possible), completely free of grind. Naturally, that means the sky is falling. (OK, OK, not everyone is saying that, but what good is a slippery slope argument without a little hyperbole?)
First of all, levels in a PvP game are a Bad Idea. Player skill should be paramount in PvP, not avatar level grinding. WAR is broken on a fundamental level because of this. Not to be too pointed, but I think it’s actually a Good Thing to get everyone up to the level cap faster, since that’s where the playing field is more level… class imbalances aside, of course.
Secondly, this is pretty clearly a nonexclusive item. Players who get riled up about someone getting ahead can just go grind to catch up. As such, it’s not about the sale item itself, it’s about someone else having something that you don’t have yet… or in the case of level capped characters, it’s whining about someone else not having to walk uphill barefoot in the snow to reach the vaunted upper echelon of the game. If you’re not having fun with the game, and have to denigrate someone else to feel superior, grow up.
Thirdly, it’s a single-use item, best used by characters in the apparently mind-numbingly slow endgame to bypass some grind. I just don’t see it actually doing much. Yes, this might set a precedent for selling advancement, but…
Fourthly, I’ve argued before that games like WoW should sell level-capped characters direct from the factory (conveniently with low overhead). If the “game starts at the level cap”, why in the world are they forcing players to monkey around for months before they play the real game? If someone wants to raid on day one, let them. And charge them for it, naturally. (Does anyone really complain about the dollar cost of the sub time that it takes to get a character raid-ready? I don’t see it, but maybe I’m not reading the right places.)
Fifthly, I’m tired of the “those dirty capitalists” arguments, whether they are leveled at the producers who are running a business or those dirty, dirty people who have money to burn and want to spend it on games. This is how markets work; they naturally evolve as demand and supply tease each other, and customers and providers jostle to get the best deal. Funny thing about that; it tends to also improve the product offered as well, as honest competition makes everyone bring their best product to the table at the lowest price. There are naturally growing pains as a market matures, but mature they do, even if some of the customers don’t.
Sixthly, for all the arrogant arguments about “a subscription is cheap if you can afford a computer and an internet connection” or “it’s cheaper than a movie and dinner” or whatever other knee-jerk mindless defense of the cost, there is an inordinate amount of moaning about how other people spend their money. The same people who will look down their nose on other people not wanting to pay a subscription have no restraint in whining about other ways money gets spent, as if it’s any of their business. Apparently it’s only OK to spend money the right way, which is to say, the way we do it. Get over yourselves, folks. The market is expanding, and your gated communes aren’t sacrosanct. (Though I also support private servers for those who really want those gates. Live and let live, I say. Of course, that might cost you more. This also applies to an argument Dblade rightly made at Spinks’ place, that advertising spam and item shop sales intrude on subscribers’ immersion. Private sub servers should be able to have all that static turned off.)
As Spinks notes, this is possibly the clearest measure yet for how much time in an MMO costs in real dollars. That cost has always been there, but it’s hugely variable. I, for one, welcome a clearer basis of comparison. That benefits the consumer looking to spend their money and the producer who wants to better understand what to sell.
Until we have a socialist utopia where MMOs are developed for the Good of Mankind with no eye whatsoever on the monetary side, we’re going to have to deal with the business of games. More choices are a Good Thing, as they have a refining effect. It’s entirely possible some incumbents will be burned in the high stakes game.
It’s about time.
“ The same people who will look down their nose on other people not wanting to pay a subscription have no restraint in whining about other ways money gets spent, as if it’s any of their business. Apparently it’s only OK to spend money the right way, which is to say, the way we do it. Get over yourselves, folks.”
*high five*
But… it matters to *me* how people spend *their* money in item shops. At least in the short run. Apparently there is self-regulating potential in the F2P prices.
The slippery slope, a fine example of where it happened and turned out to be true: WoW / SPARKLY PONY.
EverQuest 1/2 followed, STO followed, LOTRO now sells horses as well.
Well, can’t blame them for selling horses as well. But I dare to blame Ponyriders on the price tag. They voted with their wallet that this price was okay for them and set a really bad precedent and “comp” (a term used by marketing about the price of an item compared to another comparable item on the market) for the prices of virtual horses.
I am glad that the slope is not that slippery. The price for further ships in Star Trek Online is right now about half of that of the initial “Galaxy Dreadnought” sale, and extra ship skins sell for a few bucks.
In a way Blizzard was again ahead of the competitors. They were the first, people were eager for new stuff, it was new, exclusive, a one time thing – they made quite some cash of the pony.
Now the others react, only to realize that the novelty has worn off, and people won’t always shell out relatively much.
Kudos to the “Invisible Hand”.
Andrew *high five*
Longasc, you might find this article that Brian “Psychochild” Green pointed out over at his place:
Anchor Pricing
It’s a good read that touches on similar ideas. No outright mention of the Invisible Hand, but it’s there.
ahh a well thought out post. interesting link to anchor pricing too.
My only problem is just how competitive one game’s cash shop can be with another games cash shop, if players are already paying a sub. there’s a certain amount of being tied to a game due to a sub, tied to paying the sub because you like that game more than some other game.
How competitive can another cash shop be, at least in sub games, if players have to start paying a sub to have access to it.
If you understand my meaning.
F2P is a fair enough comparison, but subscription games with cash shops are a little harder to measure.
Hunter, aye, as Isey noted a few posts back, the “allegiance” that subs bring causes some interesting psychology shifts, concerns about sunk costs and the like. Layering a shop on top of subs does some weird things, too.
We’re in a transition phase in the industry, and things will be wonky for a while, especially with those games that have mutated rather than starting with a new business model from day one. There will be growing pains for a while, I think.
I find it interesting that after canceling my WoW sub (for the second time), buying some W101 currency, then later buying two CE boxes to LOTRO ($10 each on Amazon, one each for my son & I) I’m no longer playing any MMOs, neither a monthly sub nor a F2P/RMT game. Ok, so the wife’s PC did crash a few weeks back, and when I dropped her hard drive into mine my PC became hers, but other than occasionally wanting to check friends’ & family’s Facebook status, or check my email (which I can do on my son’s PC if he’s not using it) I’m not actually missing using my computer.
I don’t intend to cure cancer or solve world hunger in my spare time, but maybe it is time to start playing guitar again…
I keep telling myself I should pick up guitar, or at least piano. We have a piano, an organ and a keyboard and a guitar, and my mother teaches both, so I could go over to her place and get lessons easily.
…I’ve been a lazy, lazy son. I just played games and learned how to develop them, read a TON of books and drew and painted a lot.
…but yeah, I’ve been getting the itch to leave the computer alone and do some real world stuff. It’s nice when the computer is busted or the internet is down. That’s a good excuse to do other things I’ve been meaning to.
So well said, I could cry. With laughter, of course. Way to go, sir. Very well presented.
Great article. My concern though is about the motivation behind the game design though, not about where people spend their money. I don’t really care about where or what a person spends their cash on. My problem is that with the trend of selling items in cash shops the emphasis is no longer in designing a game good enough to hold peoples attention to keep them subbed and playing and is now on what items and game design will make people spend the most money.
Good post.
Your first point brings up a difficulty that’s been bugging me lately. If level-based persistence is bad in PvP, why do PvP games need to be MMOs at all? World persistence if anything is a hindrance to PvP, spreading players out too much and leading to metagaming rather than conflict, like EVE drama where exploits rather than skill determine sov.
The second and fourth are worrisome, because it’s not about denying others the ability to skip things. The point of the game should be to do the content: if you feel the need to skip the content, later content won’t be better. If you buy a character to avoid the need to level to cap to do endgame, you aren’t going to enjoy endgame either, because it’s a far less fun experience.
That’s what I never get. Raiding is like leveling without the location change and with far less progression. The thing about EVE is that you are buying not levels, but gold, essentially: a high SP character past a certain point is worthless without the ability to make ISK to support it.
Six you know my views on, so I wont comment except to say that spending money is a vote. Thats why people boycott-you put your money behind a company often as a sign of approval. So it’s not so simple, as it affects the genre as a whole. Very much like politics.
Longasc, I don’t think the novelty has worn off. It’s simply a matter of supply and demand. Prior to selling the sparkly horses, there was no supply of that. That increased demand (yes, for an, as yet, unmade product). But as it’s supplied, so does demand taper off.
The perverse thing here is that throughout history supply has been controlled by environment – how much food you can grow depended on the weather. Now, how many sparkly ponies you can supply depends on how many you want to release. It instead becomes a corporate game of psychological manipulation of the feeling of demand.
Tesh, I think, much like going on a long journey on foot is an accomplishment (yet just involves grinding footsteps), so to are levels an accomplishment and this is a way of buying an accomplishment. But to me – it doesn’t seem that big a deal of an accomplishment so it doesn’t seem that much of an issue to me.
For the people complaining, it’d be interesting to find out if there is any level of accomplishment they wouldn’t care about losing? Like, a really minute accomplishment? Or like someone with a nut allergy, does any tiny bit of accomplishment taken away from them cause massive swelling?
Thanks, BBB!
MMORefugee, I’ve argued many times before that the motivation to keep players subbing makes for some pretty awful game design decisions, too. You have to pick your poison, which is why choices are important.
Dblade, “why do PvP games need to be MMOs at all?”
Precisely. I think that for the most part, they don’t. Some persistence in the leader boards or the like might be good for those who want to compete, but I tend to think that the best PvP design is rooted in the PvP play itself, like a Team Fortress 2. Watering it down with PvE or leveling is just asking for trouble.
If “the point of the game should be to do the content”, what is the point of the idiotic “the game starts at the endgame” nonsense? Simply, some players love the leveling content, some hate it and want to get on the endgame treadmill as soon as possible. Again, different tastes aren’t evil. I personally have no interest in endgame raiding, but if someone else wants to jump straight into it, I say let them.
On spending money, yes indeed, support those companies who cater to your tastes. Just don’t be surprised and whiny if you find your niche (whatever it is) shrinking as the larger market expands.
Callan, there’s a curious bit of psychology there, as if achievements are zero sum. As in, someone else doing what you can do somehow makes your doing less done. We see that mentality all sorts of places, not just in games… but it’s always rung hollow to me. I’m reminded of the C.S. Lewis quote:
“Pride leads to every other vice…. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, cleverer, or better-looking than others. If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone” (Mere Christianity, (HarperCollins Ed 2001), 122)
I’m not sure that’s the entire extent of the idea of pride, there?
You don’t feel any pride in having survived against reality? No, everyone could be equally rich and still have that pride – because we could all be equally dead. Maybe you feel too safe in your society, Lewis in his time as well, to feel this pride? And so you just see the hollow version, which seems hollow to me as well, of people who do not appreciate the thing they have in itself.
The funny thing is, that pride can be taken away. Not by death, but by making the thing nothing to do with that personal survival and instead a by product of capitalist infrastructure. I mean, how much did you think about the last time you climbed stairs? Yet if you had not been born with the capacity to walk, or had lost it during your life, you would think more of the idea of having it. So do I speak of something hollow, or do you not appreciate and thus can only see the hollow version of pride?
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