A couple of thoughts on subs and F2P business and MMOs, today guest starring Tobold, Spinks and Raph Koster.
Tobold’s I Would be Happier with Free2Play
Spinks’ WoW Thought for the Day
Raph Koster’s F2P vs. Subs
I’ve long been a proponent of making WoW F2P and even offline or in W/JRPG format simply because subscriptions never offer me enough value for me to bother with them.
…and yet, I have a 60-day time card that I’ve had for almost a year and a half and a handful of 30-day time codes from the WoW VISA card I use for big purchases and emergencies. I have the time codes (and one unscratched card), ready to use, already paid for, but the flubbernuggin’ time-limited monetization scheme still doesn’t feel like good value to me. I don’t want to use those codes since I have too much going on to devote sufficient time to playing to get good value out of them. Similarly, I have a Steam code for 30 days each of FFXI and RIFT, but I haven’t activated either of them. They are paid for, ready to go, but I hate the idea of locking myself into a monogamous game experience just so I can squeeze the most out of it as I can before the time stops ticking.
I hate gaming on the clock.
…and on the other hand, I’ll happily sink a little time into the newly F2P Star Trek Online every morning sending my Duty Officers off on missions and maybe run a story arc mission in the evening. The cost of activation is really low, so I go play when I feel like it. I’m considering spending $15 or so to get a new ship that I would then be able to use whenever I darn well please for as long as the servers are live. That’s value I’ll pay for. That’s how I approach Wizard 101, too; I bought Crowns to unlock areas that I’ll get to someday, and in the meantime, I’ll play when I feel like it. I’ve spent money on Puzzle Pirates for the same reason; I bought a ship that I can sail around and pirate with, but I don’t have to keep paying just to play on the occasions when I make the time for it. I’d readily pay for a single purchase SWTOR.
Would that translate to WoW? In my case, absolutely. I’d log in and do a few quests here and there, and toss them money to unlock a dungeon or the ability to make a Dwarf Druid or make my own guild comprised entirely of my own characters without the need to recruit other players or some sort of service that lets me bypass some of the extremely poorly paced crafting curve. I’m definitely not averse to giving Blizzard money, I just want to pay for things that offer me good value. WoW is still a fun game to play, even with all its warts and weirdness. As it stands, though, I can’t exactly send them a financial message about the parts that I care about, which is one of the weaknesses of the subscription model.
…I can, however, offer to sell my time codes. Anyone? Maybe trade for some titles on my Steam Wish List? Oh, and I still have some coupons and COGS and World of Goo if anyone wants them. Nobody took me up on the snowflake contest, so I’ll just throw them to the winds. (Another interesting take on value, perhaps…)
Random question, but do you know if the Warcraft game time codes are valid internationally, or if they’re limited to US only?
And here I was going to ask you for your thoughts on why WoW should get off the subscription model. Great post. 🙂
Gazimoff, I’m not sure.
I’ll poke around and see if I can find a solid answer. Sorry, I should have thought of that.Alas, after not finding information on either VISA or Blizzard’s sites, I found a cute little aside in the emails with the codes that says that they are only good in the Americas. Punks.Not sure about the 60-day time card’s regional properties… still investigating.Bah, those are region-locked, too. Silliness.Cyn, it seemed the appropriate time for it. 🙂 Thanks!
I much prefer the FtP business model myself. I like permanent value being added to my account when I pay to unlock things (Wizard 101 is a great example, DDO is another personal favorite). I also find it hard to justify paying $60 for a client when there are so many good options now where the client is free.
SWTOR sucked me in by being so much fun during the beta weekend I tried it. I genuinely hope that it’s the last sub based MMO I end up wanting to play at launch. It’s a payment model I think is past it’s time. When there were only a half dozen or so MMOs to pick from, locking yourself into one or two of them seemed reasonable. Now that there are literally hundreds of MMOs (and at least a few dozen good ones) the high barrier to entry that sub based MMOs represent doesn’t make a lot of sense.
As an aside, this post got me wondering “How many MMOs are live in North America?” I wasn’t able to come up with any easy answer, does anyone know? There are several websites that list 100+
As far as “good MMOs” I came up with a list off the top of my head. Depending on the defintion I used I came up with between 14 and 19 MMOs I know of that are “good” to my personal tastes, and ten more I suspect I’d like but have never tried.
I’ve always liked the pay by the hour model. No cash shop, no monthly subscription (which I get huge value out of), just pay when you actually want to pay. I think the issue with that is that it too heavily favors the player and not the publicly traded, soulless companies (oh no!).
I like free to play, I just haven’t seen a model yet that works for me. They all seem to be focused on getting $15 /mo plus more out of you. I suppose DDO does a great job. Other than that, I think LotRO’s model is terrible. I don’t like EQ2s either. Both seem more for the PTSC and less for me!
I’m still most fond of the Guild Wars/Wizard 101 model of selling content, to be honest. DDO does a bit of that, too. I’ll happily pay for content that I can then play through however I like, and it’s nice to dodge some of the “nickle and diming” or piecemeal payments that way. I buy content when I buy other games, and I’m still happily doing that… even for games I don’t wind up playing immediately.
Absolutely. The more time goes by, the less time I have for gaming – though I love it as much as ever. Paying for a month of time may be a good value, but if work picks up/daughter wants some time/whatever I may only play two/three times, making that $15 a really terrible value.
I often consider playing MMO’s I’ve purchased but cancelled, then don’t because the cost to resub+uncertainty make it too much of a hassle.
If I could play at will, I’d get a lot more time in, and that time leads to purchases in game, instead of the nothing they get now.
To me it feels kind of like buying a sandwhich and either I keep eating the sandwich even after I don’t really want to (keep playing even though I’d kind of prefer not to), or I throw away part of the sandwhich uneaten, wasting it.
Can almost see the merit in the old pay by the hour system (if, in game, you could keep track of the time or even, once your done, set it to auto log out before the next hour)
Or perhaps they could be like old arcade games 😉 – you pay for a life. How long your money goes depends on your own player skill!
[…] As much as I like Star Trek Online, I’m looking forward to finishing it and moving on. I suspect it’s similar to how I’d approach Star Wars The Old Republic, inasmuch as I want to play the story and then move on to another one. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and I’m not burned out on STO (and I still highly recommend it, flawed though it is at times, like any other game)… I just have a lot of other games I want to play, and I need to move on instead of getting stuck in a rut. This also means I’m less likely to burn out on the game, since I’m not feeling obligated to play past the point where I’m having fun, whether because I’m in a raiding guild or paying a subscription I want to get good value out of. […]
I’m totally sold on the F2P system.
With WoW, it works. People still playing that game are dedicated gamers who do it 5 days a week. But that’s the only MMO that I know of that will survive solely on the old monthly subscription route. I have a pretty good feeling that SWTOR will eventually go F2P when the initial hype is over.
Look at DCUO. That game went from subscription to F2P in like five months.
I’m playing Star Trek Online, myself. It’s a great game with some interesting concepts. Like player-added content (you can play other peoples’ home-made missions) and Fleet Actions (again, some of which are player made). People are friendly, PvP is totally optional (you volunteer for the wars), and everything you buy you keep in the game.