There is a great thread that’s been going for several days now over at The Common Sense Gamer instigated by some comments SOE’s John Smedley recently made regarding microtransactions. I urge you to check it out if you haven’t read it yet.
There is no question that microtransactions are a viable business model–especially since they provide access to games for very young players still tied to their parents’ purse strings who might not be able to scratch up the nominal $15 dollars a month in subscription fees.
For social MMOs that aren’t “games” in the traditional sense–Second Life for example, microtransact away if that floats your boat. It’s not so much the nickel-and-diming that comes with microtransactions that turns me off to them. It’s the uneven playing field they create. Money and fairness don’t mix. Look at politics. Look at class structure. Look at professional athletics. Anyone ever see Eight Men Out about the White Sox throwing the World Series?
Face it. In most MMORPGs, competition for resources–be it currency, materials, or gear–is a major element in the game, whether the game is PvE, PvP, or a hybrid. If these resources can be purchased with real money, this not only devalues the time and effort put in by folks that didn’t buy their way to their goals, but also has as much of an adverse effect on game economy as gold farmers do. The only difference? The money is going into the pockets of the designers instead of some cyber-sweatshop overseer in Singapore.
My main problem with SOE in particular is perhaps Smed should not look at payment methods as the “barrier to entry” for getting people to play MMOs. SOE spread themselves too thin. They have what–around ten plus games and 90% of them are lemons?
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, though, since he is as much a businessman as he is “Joe Average gamer who happens to be at the helm of the MMO division of a huge multinational corporation.” 200,000 subs is a healthy monthly subscription number, but thanks to Blizzard, suits look at those numbers (which are by no means representative of any other pay-to-play western MMO before or after WoW) and $ay, “Hey, how can we do that?” Not every athlete can be Rocky Marciano or Jackie Robinson. That doesn’t make them bad at what they do.
Make a game that’s fun and people will play (and pay), regardless of the payment method. That’s one thing Blizzard has proven that is attainable, whereas CEOs lu$ting after nine million $ub$criber$ might be setting the bar a bit high at this point. Continue to churn out mediocre title after mediocre title and pissing in the wind, and no one’s gonna care whether it’s free-to-play or you’re paying us to play it.
Build it, and they will come.
I don’t know if it’s post-Christmas shell shock or what, but it’s been a pretty uneventful week gaming newswise. Since I was out of the loop for most of 2007 with a fried laptop, you’ll be spared any sort of 2007 wrap up from me.
My return to WoW has proven a lot more entertaining than my return to Vanguard. I got through high school and four and a half years of college never having read a whole Shakespeare play. Likewise, after 25 years as an RPGer and four as an MMORPGer–I have yet to make it past the complimentary first month free subscription of any SOE title. At least SOE are in good company. As a big comic book geek, I’m betting their DC Heroes MMO is the one that finally ropes me in if it’s done right.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Not much to report here. Didn’t get a chance to try Tabula Rasa yet. I ended up giving the copy I ordered for myself to my brother-in-law. He and my sister are expecting their second kid this spring, so his window of opportunity for gaming will be somewhat limited once the new bairn arrives.
I used the LoTRO buddy key I’ve been sitting on since last spring, but by the time I returned from my week-and-a-half of holiday merrymaking, the 10-day trial was up. I guess some things just aren’t meant to be.
Speaking of things not meant to be, I didn’t renew my Vanguard subscription. It just didn’t offer me anything substantially different–or more fun–than the other fantasy MMOs out there. Telon never quite sunk its talons into me the way WoW did.
And speaking of the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, I finally installed Burning Crusade. Despite all my protests upon release, and hemming and hawing about Blizzard resting on its laurels by giving us more of the same dressed up in a different skin, the game is fun. They’ve learned how to incorporate rep grinding into questing a lot better and added enough new twists and tweaks to suck me back in like Pacino in Godfather 3.
I made some great online friends in my old WoW guild and was pleased to see that many of them are still there, proving yet again that it’s not so much the game you’re playing, but the people you’re playing with.
