The costs of being a gamer

[Keroko]

Risky? If anything, it's the subscription-based system that's the more risky of the two. Many hundreds of games have shown us that cash shops are profitable, while also keeping a lower entry barrier. You can leave and come back whenever you want. Subscription based MMO's on the other hand, force you to choose between them.

And the funny thing? People who do use cash shops tend to spend more in cash shops than they would on only a monthly fee, since they spend in small amounts, which makes them feel like they spend less. It's a marketing trick that has worked since the birth of merchants themselves.

Meanwhile, any subscription based MMO not named WoW, maybe TOR is either doing "well enough" at best or "struggling and on the verge of going F2P" at worst.

Or they're dead. That's worst I guess.

[Flying Dagger]

Who said you can't sell pets and mounts in a "cash store" in a subs model?

"Power oriented" cash shops from any "high end" MMO developers would cause an uproar as it turns the game into a "money based" game instead of a skill and time investment based game. D3's (if you consider that as borderline MMO) real money auction house is sitting on a very fine line. I suspect any "serious" D3 player would only care about hardcore mode where the RMAH is disabled.

Buying the xp boosters in LoL is borderline buying power imo.

TOR is not doing so well. The leveling process is very fun (even better than WoW Cata leveling), however the lack of endgame content along with many other factors (some simple min-max mods) is still contributing to the decline in playerbase at a rather dangerous level.

[synaesthetic]

"Cash shops" are profitable and the general direction the entire industry is headed in. This is not negotiable. It is reality. I know most MMO fans hate the microtransaction models because it makes their e-peens shrink, but this model makes more money. It just does. Get over it.

[Dhomochevsky]

I've played EvE:Online for quite some time.
It's subscription based with a monthly pay. But you can sell chunks of your own subscription time to other players for ingame money too.
That way you can buy your way into the game with real cash, while the total amount of ingame cash stays the same.
On the other hand, an active player can easily finance their monthly subscription fee completely with ingame money.

So overall from the company's view, there is one subscription payment income per player account, per month. But in reality a few players are financing a lot of other players gametime with their real cash, in exchange for those other player's efforts grinding ingame valuables.

It's a very nice model for active players. But if you become inactive and don't want to grind your monthly fee by playing, the same thing as with any other subscription model applies.

Of course, the amount of subscription time the playerbase can use up per month is limited (each player only needs one fee per month). If there is more time on the market than the players can use up, it's ingame value simply drops. So this puts a limit on how much money the company can earn.
This is countered a bit by allowing massive multiaccounting. If gametime is cheap, it's always an option to buy some of it and fire up another account.
But this wasn't enough apparently, so they recently decided there needs to exist a cash sink for real money, which is not limited by account numbers. So they too put a cash shop into the game in the end. I think it's only for cosmetics (haven't played in some time now), but that may change.

Anyway, their initial model with redistributable gametime was a very good one. Much better than pure subscription models.

[Flying Dagger]

Trading in game currency for game time is very common on some "deserted" WoW servers (ie: south american based servers) where trade chat is not "as moderated". Although against the ToS, it is how my last 2 years of WoW game time was financed before I deem it is just a waste of time.

//I agree with the concept of the Eve model.

[NorthernFallout]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

But this wasn't enough apparently, so they recently decided there needs to exist a cash sink for real money, which is not limited by account numbers. So they too put a cash shop into the game in the end. I think it's only for cosmetics (haven't played in some time now), but that may change.

EVE is one of the few companies that "gets" it (regarding PLEX etc). However, one only needs to look at the MonocleGate incident last year to see how fast it can blow up in their faces. As you say, it's only cosmetics, but they had plans to sell "Gold Ammo" or some such items. This being one of the reasons for last year's disaster, and since then CCP has promised they will do no such thing.

Though they might give some kind of custom skins for ships, we don't know their plans.

------

As for me personally, I don't mind F2P or P2P, as long as it isn't P2W. I'll gladly pay a sub if I know I'm getting my money worth (EVE 3+ years and at one time 3 accs), or I go F2P, like in the case of Guild Wars or LoL. Appearance stuff from the cash shops holds no value for me, though I might buy a skin or something to support the company.

As long as the cash shops don't offer immense differences in items, I'm fine with it. But it is a slippery slope.

Regarding P2P in general, I'm inclined to agree with Keroko's assertion overall.

[synaesthetic]

P2W is a load of crap, but "pay to skip grind" is something that I'd like to see a lot more of in games that aren't subscription models. Hell, I'd like to see it in games that ARE subscription modeled, so I don't have to repeat the same goddamned quest over and over again for some arbitrary rep bar to fill up.

Or, you know, a company could just create a MMO with no grind. That'd be lovely. I'd pay for that.

[Dhomochevsky]

P2W is hard to define though.
If you pay to bypass grind, while others don't, you are getting ahead of them. Is this already P2W?

To stay with the EVE example (because it's the one I know best), the amount of grind you could bypass with cash is basicly unlimited.
This was never much of a problem, because of the typical 'numbers trump all' PvP mechanics there. Even the most expensive gear could be easily overcome by a small group of players with cheap gear.

The exception are endgame items that only really work on a grand scale, like Titans and Motherships. In those cases the basic items are already really expensive, so you would need a lot of cash (aka grind) to field good numbers of those. They have no real cheap counter.
And that was exactly the point where real cash influx altered the game's balance noticeably.

Sadly, the monthly subscription model promotes grind. If you could reach all the good content quickly and without efforts, you would go through it too fast and not pay month after month.
On the other hand EVE has no good (PvE) content whatsoever and it still works somehow, so maybe that would be actually viable.

[synaesthetic]

I consider pay-to-win to mean precisely that. If you don't pay, you hit a literal stop that prevents you from advancing at all. WoW is P2W, because you get to play to level 20 for free, and if you want to advance further, you have no choice but to start paying.

Pay-to-reduce-grind doesn't do that, it just lets you save some hours with a couple bucks.

[Flying Dagger]

I perceive p2w as end-game items/bonus to be shop oriented.
I don't consider WoW as p2w: its is not modelled as such and the "trial" system should not be used to judge how the game is modelled.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

I perceive p2w as end-game items/bonus to be shop oriented.
I don't consider WoW as p2w: its is not modelled as such and the "trial" system should not be used to judge how the game is modelled.

Sounds pretty clear to me. In order to "win" (that is, complete the available content) one must "pay" (that is, give Blizzard money). If one does not pay, then Blizzard stops you at level 20 and you are physically incapable of advancing further, which makes winning pretty fucking impossible.

So thus in order to "win" you must "pay."

This is not difficult to understand. Paying for gear and items in cash shops is not pay to win. That is pay-to-remove-the-shitty-terrible-sucky-parts-of-MMOs.

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

This is not difficult to understand. Paying for gear and items in cash shops is not pay to win. That is pay-to-remove-the-shitty-terrible-sucky-parts-of-MMOs.

I stay away from MMOs that can't offer me an enjoyable experience of progression. For me, paying to skip to the end is like entering cheat code in old games .

As DLCs, I viewed them as mini-expansion packs still. I would plonk down the extra cash if it's a game i enjoyed so i don't mind getting extra contents. However, if a game is intentionally short or unfulfilling to cash in on DLCs, i probably wont even buy the game itself let alone the DLC.

Eve online is a weird scenario. Unlike other games which let you keep your gears after death, you lose your ship when you get blown up in EvE. So in essence, PLEX is a pay 2 win mechanic. However, there are still pilot skill points that only increases overtime which limits that mechanic heavily and not to mention, having bigger and more expensive ship doesn't mean you are going to beat smaller and cheaper ships.

[synaesthetic]

If a game is too grindy I will open the dev console and fix that problem. I do it in ME2 every time I play--add some rep points so I don't have to farm them, add a bunch of money and resources so I don't have to interact with the grind...

See, I'm playing a game to have fun.

Not to be bored to tears.

If I can skip the "boring to tears" part, I will.

[Flying Dagger]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Sounds pretty clear to me. In order to "win" (that is, complete the available content) one must "pay" (that is, give Blizzard money). If one does not pay, then Blizzard stops you at level 20 and you are physically incapable of advancing further, which makes winning pretty fucking impossible.

So thus in order to "win" you must "pay."

This is not difficult to understand. Paying for gear and items in cash shops is not pay to win. That is pay-to-remove-the-shitty-terrible-sucky-parts-of-MMOs.

Then all MMO (or just single player games) with a level capped trial would be classified as P2W? I think that is bending it too far. I would still classify WoW as P2P with a cosmetic item shop.

One can argue all subscription based games are P2W even if they do not have any "free trial" component - as you have to keep paying game time and use that game time to advance in power and networth.

One can also argue Guild Wars is a P2P game with a one time sub to their servers that last until they take down the servers.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Or, you know, a company could just create a MMO with no grind. That'd be lovely. I'd pay for that.

The grind exists because companies can't churn out content fast enough to keep up with consumption unless they introduce artificial roadblocks. Attunements, keys, dailies, reputations, rare drops, etc., are all designed to slow down the player. Even balance itself is a grind, just look at class balance. Oh, your class isn't flavor of the month? Spend time getting another character up to par.....just in time for the nerf bat to swing. You end up maintaining an army of alts who each compete for your limited grinding time just to ensure you can, y'know....have fun.

Some people like those elements, and I'm not saying that the concept of those things are bad, but the way they are implemented is definitely intended to slow you down while keeping that carrot out of reach just a little bit longer.

Ultimately it comes down to the technical limitations of the MMO genre itself, so you basically end up with an amusement park of sorts, sectioned off into little areas that allow for limited fun, while you earn stuff for your virtual Barbie doll (or action figure, whatever).

WoW made a huge number of quality of life improvements over its predecessors, but it also added fences to everything, and removed the RPG from the MMO. That doesn't mean WoW wasn't fun, but it basically did to the MMO genre what Michael Bay does to everything.

[synaesthetic]

I'd be happier with no grind and a time limit of playtime per day, like the old DOOR games from the BBS days. You got to play a certain number of turns per day and then you had to go away and let someone else play, since only one person could be logged into the BBS at once (for every phone line you had connected, that is).

Because two hours of fun gaming in one day is better than six hours of unfun grinding to get to an hour or two of fun gaming.

I think FFXIV tried to do this but failed spectacularly. Since it, you know, still has the grind.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

/random

Disregarding hardware - PC and Consoles - last I worked it out, about 10-12 years ago I had spent about $5000 on games alone, according to the boxes I have in the cupboard with prices attached. I shudder to think how much that has grown.


I won't get into the MMO debate, we'd be here for years extolling the negatives and positives. That and it'd be pretty much preaching to the choir. No grind would be great but as it is at the moment its an impossible dream. I kind of miss the old school MMO's like EQ, because they feel more like a world, where you're free to do whatever, then a heavily scripted facade. Of the current MMO's that I've cared enough for to play, I think EVE is the only one that keeps that feeling.

[FRS]

Speaking as mainly a PC gamer:

1. Are MMO subscription fees outdated?
2. Is it fair to charge beyond the initial purchase to unlock content already on the disk?
3. Is it fair to pay full retail cost for a digital copy of a game?
4. Are virtual console titles (like old NES games) over priced?
5. Should virtual content be locked to account instead of device?

1) No, i acknowledge that servers and bandwidth cost mony, on the other hand i also expect a steady stream of updates coming from the devs.

2) Not in my opignion, if you managed to finish something before the disks are shipped or before the certification (for console game), it should be part of the game, not DLC.

3) I dont that's fair, there are cost associated to bandwidth and servers but you dont have shipping or manufacturing cost.

5) The best case would be a central account used by all publishers and that would allow us to trade or lend our games but that's not going to happend soon ^^;. In our current context i favor a account system à la Steam.

[-Sho-]

I'll just say that in GW2 you can buy GEMS (Cash shop money) with Ingame moneys... so don't worry with your IRL moneys....

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by FRS

Speaking as mainly a PC gamer:

1) No, i acknowledge that servers and bandwidth cost mony, on the other hand i also expect a steady stream of updates coming from the devs.

You may have to go look up the financial reports of Activision Blizzard, the cost of servers and bandwith actually average up to $2 per user. It's not as much as most of us might think. The cost of infrastructure have dropped quite a lot compare to the MMORPG of the olden days.

Originally Posted by Solace

The grind exists because companies can't churn out content fast enough to keep up with consumption unless they introduce artificial roadblocks. Attunements, keys, dailies, reputations, rare drops, etc., are all designed to slow down the player. Even balance itself is a grind, just look at class balance. Oh, your class isn't flavor of the month? Spend time getting another character up to par.....just in time for the nerf bat to swing. You end up maintaining an army of alts who each compete for your limited grinding time just to ensure you can, y'know....have fun.

Some people like those elements, and I'm not saying that the concept of those things are bad, but the way they are implemented is definitely intended to slow you down while keeping that carrot out of reach just a little bit longer.

Ultimately it comes down to the technical limitations of the MMO genre itself, so you basically end up with an amusement park of sorts, sectioned off into little areas that allow for limited fun, while you earn stuff for your virtual Barbie doll (or action figure, whatever).

WoW made a huge number of quality of life improvements over its predecessors, but it also added fences to everything, and removed the RPG from the MMO. That doesn't mean WoW wasn't fun, but it basically did to the MMO genre what Michael Bay does to everything.

WoW for it's time was brilliant. Gone were the public dungeon where groups camp out spawn point to grind for hours just for xp. And if you try to solo, good luck ever getting max levels.

As much as the internet hates WoW, i still believe they deserve credit where it's due for not only setting a new standard of quality for MMO and expanding the genre to the size that is today when we all thought the market is at it's peak with EQ (400k sub).

However, subscription based MMO is going out of fashion. Companies are adopting business models which are more accessible to a wider market through free to play and i think it's a good thing for consumers as we no longer need to risk $60 upfront and monthly sub to know if a MMO is fun for us or not.