Saylah of Mystic Worlds has a great post up regarding choice in monetization of MMOs. I’m extra busy today, so I’ll just wave and say “yes, what she said”:
Real Money Transactions (RMT) – The Cost of Convenience
OK, I’ll add that this is exactly the sort of argument that I keep making, but I’m a noob. Saylah has more MMO experience than I do, and thus more “street cred”, if you care about that sort of thing, rather than common sense.
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Dear Tesh, I travelled afar to the webpage of Saylah the Mislead, and answered her:
“You do not need this ‘tool’ called horse. But you want it.
I am against money for ingame items. It starts out with little things, and soon you pay for this, that, everything. It is not a good idea.
This does not mean that it must be impossible for people to gain a horse without extreme grind… I do not like that either. But buying it for real money? No.”
You just confessed your inclination to such a cardinal sin again, Tesh. I fear for your soul! But keep on going, I take great pleasure in looking into the minds of sinners! 🙂
I’d rather pay for pieces of the game that I’ll use than pay for the buffet access to things I’ll never get to. That’s the point. 😉 As a dev, you could get money from me for a horse, or you get no money because I’m not paying a sub. It’s about granularity in monetization, and capturing the outliers who won’t pay the flat sub fees. It’s about giving players choices. Choices are good in the game design itself, they are good in monetization as well.
The grind argument is secondary (though deeply entwined with the sub model philosophy).
That is precisely the point. There’s no need to pay for content that you have no intention of accessing. AND some of us do not consider grinding as playing MMORPGs. I want content. I’m not interested in grinding for tools to access content. And the horse not being needed is complete BS or have you not played WOW where having a flying mount is ESSENTIAL and the ONLY METHOD for some areas in TBC.
As long as developers insist on creating idiotic random spawn 2nd-job sweat-equity cock-blocks, I insist on the option of bowing out. I can do that with a purchase in a game which still gets me as a customer. Or I can bow out by not buying or subscribing to the game. It’s there choice. It’s my choice and I’ve made mine. 🙂
I am going to read the article and probably blog about this over on Muckbeast as well.
By the way, I moved and selfhost now Tesh, so if you wouldn’t mind changing my link in your blogroll (to: http://www.muckbeast.com) I would appreciate it! 🙂
I wondered about that, thanks! Should I call you frog now? *goes to change link*
Oh site looks great Muck. I wasn’t aware of you before but am reading thru your blog now and will be linking to it.