I really need to start writing the Week in Review articles on an earlier day of the week. The problem I have each week with writing the article on Sunday is that I risk what happened this week, suddenly being called in for a long shift with plans afterward, and losing those couple hours of opportunity. On the other hand, writing the Week in Review on Monday, albeit late, allows me to keep up the factor of not writing out the article and then having something more interesting pop up at the last minute.
1. The Guy That Fills Up On Free Bread
I oft find myself in arguments with people on this website and others over the concept of free to play games, with an added focus on what should be available for free. More often than not, the people I deal with are similar to the majority of the “I demand an open beta” crowd, a group of people who have no interest in paying any money, but would like an opportunity to play as much of a game for free and will set up the facade of a potential customer in order to achieve that.
In previous posts, I’ve referred to these people as “perpetual freeloaders,” but have pointed out that they are more of a nuisance than an actual problem. A perpetual freeloader will complain that a game isn’t really free to play because you don’t have access to all classes, or the developer doesn’t make 100% of the content (including everything in the cash shop) available in-game. I’ve noticed they are also in the group that believes buy-to-play (see: Guild Wars) should be the only business model for an MMO, despite their only example (Guild Wars) not being a true MMO and their other example (Guild Wars 2) being a cash shop game rather than a buy-to-play.
That being said, I want to remind you again that I have no problem with people who play through these games for free, rather when the person hits an unacceptable level of entitlement is where I start getting annoyed. I had a conversation with a player in Hellgate Global this past week about the Act 3 ticket, when he types in chat “The act 3 ticket is a scam.” A scam? How so? Because you have to pay a one time fee of $5 for content, or grind palladium to get it for completely free?
2. Value Vs Cost: Cash Shops Vs Subscription Vs Free
Even long before Ultima Online came out, the idea of a subscription game was dividing. Opponents asked “why should I pay a subscription when any other game is free, and many include online components?” The answer, of course, is for maintaining the servers and regular content updates. Now that the business has grown to include microtransactions, the subscription method has become the “norm,” with people asking “why should I pay more than $15 a month when I can access the full game for that much?” Many companies like Turbine agree, and offer premium subscriptions that either make aspects of the cash shop free, or offer free cash shop points each month.
But is $15 a month the cap where costs become too much? Again, this is dividing and there is no real “right” answer. Rather, the question should be “which is a viable business method,” and the answer is both. In some games, players can easily blow through fifteen bucks, whereas other games might take longer to go through the same sum of cash. It all depends on the taste and wallet of the consumer.
3. Compensation, Developers, and Exclusivity
I’m one of the few that purchased a Nintendo 3DS around the time of launch, yet I don’t regret my purchase, even with the upcoming price drop. What caught my eye about the price drop, aside from the fact that Nintendo is offering 10 free NES games and 10 free Gameboy Advance games, is the fact that the 10 GBA games will not be available for purchase. If you don’t have a 3DS before the price drops and become part of the ambassador program, you are not going to get these games, free or otherwise. Most surprisingly are that the games aren’t exactly low-key titles. Mario Kart, Metroid Fusion, and more titles to be released, these are games that many players would love to get their hands on.
Still, on the MMO front, I can’t count how many free months of City of Heroes I’ve had because of an NCsoft game I owned shutting down. NCsoft has always been good about compensating their players when a game closes doors, generally offering free keys to Lineage II, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, and free game time in each title. Sony Online Entertainment is offering the last few months for free for Galaxies players, and will probably have some other form of appreciation to show further along the line.
4. For All Those Developers You’ve Never Heard Of
There are over one thousand MMOs released each year, and probably 990 of them you will never hear of/from, especially not on this website. Most of these MMOs are released in Asia and never make it over to the West, but those that do tend to be met with little to no fanfare from the American/European audiences. A majority of those titles will not be released because they place their lore in obscure mythology that would bore the average western gamer. From a gameplay point of view, many will never be brought over simply because they are mere clones of existing MMOs.
I get a lot of people asking why I refrain from using the term “wow clone,” and how although I publicly acknowledge the existence of such titles, I’ve never named a game as such. This is because the titles you see on the market (Rift, Warhammer, etc) are not clones of World of Warcraft. Yes, they share similarities in mechanics, but they are not clones. Until you venture through Ogarmir on a Griffon to meet Threll, the leader of the Orcan, you haven’t seen a true WoW clone.
The rest, I call dime-store MMOs, as they literally offer little more than grinding mobs to end-game, and pvp, with little if anything in crafting or instancing. On regular occasion, these games do find a publisher in the west (I call them dime-stores) that quietly launch and just as quietly shutter them. An example of such a dime store is Gamepot USA and GameKiss, who have somehow managed to stay in business despite the fact that the games these companies host last between one and two years before kicking the bucket.
5. Making a profit? Hello Diablo 3
I like to think of myself as, not an expert, but well trained in the art of cash shops and microtransactions. So when Diablo 3 comes out, I plan to put that knowledge in full force as a salesman of in-game items. Blizzard today announced that players will be able to sell items to other players using a global auction house, for real cash. Players will have the opportunity to turn that cash into World of Warcraft time, or even turn it in for real money (minus fees by Blizzard).
Now, I won’t talk about my plans on here (can’t give away too much), but I’m already working on what I will be gearing up with and selling on the in-game marketplace. Who knows, if all goes well I might just buy you that mink coat of +5 marksmanship you wanted. Or I won’t, whichever comes first.
MMO Fallout 