Let’s Talk Free To Play “Customers”


Today I wanted to talk free to play, primarily the base that makes up the players and customers, two terms I want to keep separated for the purpose of this article. Let’s take Lord of the Rings Online as an example. A player is someone who downloads the game for free, accumulates Turbine points using in-game rewards and not buying them, and makes it as far as he can before running out of free points, getting bored, and quitting. A customer is someone who pays, be it in any amount of Turbine points, or through the VIP system.

I used Lord of the Rings and not Runescape because Runescape free players are, in a way, customers. Although they don’t pay any money out of pocket, they view advertisements which, according to Jagex’s financial reports, made somewhere around 7% of their revenue in 2009, and have likely remained about the same since. Getting in free players is a financial incentive in itself to Jagex.

For the rest of you, however, I’m going to use the drug analogy. Your first hit is always free, because the goal is to get you hooked and going back for more. Going back to Lord of the Rings Online, my readings are sporadic, but from my understanding a player can get around level 30 buying quest packs (many of which are rather cheap) using only the Turbine points given as task rewards. By that point, your next inclination is likely “well that Turbine point card at Target is only ten bucks. Might as well buy one.” Of course you know where the addiction goes from there.

But the companies that make free to play games aren’t sinister drug dealers who want you hooked, they recognize that the players who pay will be footing the bill for the players who do not, so they offer incentives to dole up some money. Turbine offers free points for VIP members, others offer extra bag space, better loot, and higher experience for subscribing.

Like drug dealers, you have to learn to avoid the bad ones. There is a very fine line between incentives for subscribers and punishing free players. Years back I had a chance to talk to an ex-customer service rep (not here on MMO Fallout) for a Korean MMO whose player (not subscriber) numbers rivaled World of Warcraft’s. What I found most interesting was the company’s policy on free vs paying members. A lot of the time, paying members were allowed to cheat, farm gold, use bots, etc, while free players would be routinely banned for minor offences. The internal policy was that the people were paying, so why not let them do whatever they wanted? As for the free players, “screw em.” There would be many more to take their place.

Harsh, but I’ve been called rather unsympathetic for indifference towards a group I’ve referred to as “permanent freeloaders” in the past so not at all surprising. What you need to understand when entering a game with full resolve that you will never pay a dime, is that the company has minimal interest in your presence. Sure you might bring friends into the game and they might pay for some stuff, but your demands will be met with a deaf ear.

On games like Runescape, Champions Online, etc, I often hear the permanent freeloaders complain about being treated like wallets waiting to be opened, but why would you expect anything else? A grocery store doesn’t offer free samples because you look famished and they’d like to feed you, and a developer doesn’t offer up their game for free because they hope less people will pay and more will simply enjoy the game. At the end of the day, the company has to pay its employees, and they’ve found a way to do that but far more efficiently with the free to play system. Like I said with Dungeons and Dragons Online, going free pays off more.

One of MMO Fallout’s core principles runs around MMOs as like a relationship between the developer and player, and free to play just goes to further the analogy. Developers have realized over time that a great majority of customers need to see what they’re getting into before they want to saddle up and cash in, and this system is just the way to do that. To go even further, a good cash shop game is like a gorgeous person you meet at a public place. You talk, have some things in common, and decide to have dinner. Slowly, but surely, you get to know each other better and the relationship becomes solid and loving. Next thing you know, you’re buying your love that brand new 2011 Kia to go in the garage of the house you just bought together. This is the best way to form a long-lasting relationship.

Then you have folks like Astrum Nival (Allods Online) who approach you in a bar, drunk, and just start dry humping you and spilling martini all over your good clothing. When you push them away, they get angry and violent, and start shouting about how you should be privileged to even call for their notice, and how anyone else would be throwing themselves at them. Sure, they might get successful with one or two people, but none of the relationships will be long, they will definitely be expensive to those they sucker in, and the ordeal will probably just put their partners off of forming future relationships.

Are we still talking about video games?

Star Wars Galaxies Shuts Down December 15th


Six years. Back when the New Game Enhancements and Combat Upgrade hit Star Wars Galaxies in 2005, players asked: How long can the game last now that Sony has alienated its core group? The answer is six years. What can be called the biggest PR blunder in the history of the gaming industry, spawned a game that survived six years, countless updates, and a steadily dwindling player base. Here at MMO Fallout, I always hate having to write these articles, and thankfully for the past two years I’ve only had to write them once every few months. I’m the only person in my room currently, so to say that the room fell silent at this news may not make sense to anyone but those dwelling in my mind.

Over at the Star Wars Galaxies website, John Smedley has announced that Galaxies will shut down on December 15th.

In recognition of your incredible loyalty, we are extending special Fan Appreciation offers to the current SWG community. We also plan to go out with a bang with a galaxy-ending in-game event in December and hope to see you all there. The details relating to these offers and events as well as the timeline and specifics regarding the discontinuation of the service, are provided below.

In an interview with John Smedley at Massively, Smedley reveals that the contract for Galaxies was up in 2012, and with the release of The Old Republic late this year, the two companies mutually decided that now was a good time to end the game. Smedley talks about numerous things, but most interestingly he brings up the NGE.

There’s really nothing we can do about it. We’ve taken some hard-knocks for SWG in years past with the NGE. We’ve apologized for it. It was a mistake, and not one we’re going to make as a company ever again. But we’re really proud of the great work that we’ve done over the years since then. I’m really proud of the game. It’s great. Is it going to bum people out that it’s over? Yes. Including us. Maybe even especially us.

On one note, according to Smedley no one is losing their job over this. They are moving to an undisclosed project.

You can read the entire announcement above. For those of us who have followed or played Galaxies since its inception, this will truly be the end of an era.

More on Star Wars Galaxies as it appears. And just before Galaxies’ birthday…feliz navidad.

Eve Online: Nothing Micro About These Transactions…


In an interview with Eurogamer back in October, Eve Online’s Tori Frans Olafsson stated that CCP was looking to introduce a cash shop, noting that any items added would be purely cosmetic. Now in June, CCP released the first phase of Incarna, bringing with it the Captains Quarters update, offering players the ability to buy clothing and an ocular implant for their avatar. As many players have pointed out, these transactions are anything but micro.

I’ve asked this question before: At what point do micro-transactions simply become transactions? The prices on these items range from about twenty dollars to almost seventy for the ocular implant. The new real money currency can be purchased with PLEX, meaning players with enough ISK can indeed buy the items without spending any actual cash. The ocular implant, for example, work out to about 1.3 billion ISK, depending on the market price for PLEX.

As I’ve seen pointed out on the forums, this sounds more like a money sink than a serious cash shop. Given that only you can see your purchases, it stands that CCP is looking to get rid of some excess PLEX by corporations or players who have simply amassed a large quantity of the item. Remember, PLEX isn’t just created out of thin air, so the factor of “players will get the cash shop items for nothing” does not have any grounds in reality. Yes, the person buying the item with PLEX he purchased with ISK does not spend any real cash, however someone had to buy the PLEX to put on the market. The benefits of such a market sink come at a rather low cost. There is no cost to keep shelves stocked, the bandwidth amount is probably negligible, and the number of players who will actually quit (as opposed to threatening to do so) are microscopic in size.

If you don’t like the cash shop, let CCP know. The best thing you can do is to not buy the items, and encourage your friends not to either. If you feel strong enough about it, vote with your wallet, and end your subscription.

Lego Universe Heading Free To Play This August


I have to admit: Second free to play announcement of the day, yet not as exciting as the first. MMORPG.com is reporting that Lego Universe is set to go free to play this fall, although reading the announcement, the transition sounds more like calling Warhammer Online’s endless trial a free to play system.

The LEGO Universe free-to-play experience will offer a limited selection of game content, including two adventure zones and one player property area for building their own virtual LEGO models. Paying members will have access to all areas in the full game, along with membership benefits such as competitions and community events. In addition to the 15+ robust adventure zones and instances as well as 5+ property worlds currently in-game, access to new expansions, like major Ninjago content coming later this year, will require players to register for full membership.

Hopefully this will entice players to join up and subscriber. More information on an actual date when it is released. This move is likely related to the Lego team being sold by NetDevil back to Lego.

City of Heroes Free To Play Coming


Age of Conan isn’t the only game getting in the spotlight. City of Heroes is the first big name Superhero MMO, launching in 2004 and since spawning two expansion packs, twenty “issues” (big content updates), and countless holiday events. Despite the game’s obvious decline in subscribers as it has aged, City of Heroes has managed to survive the competition of Champions Online and the recently released DC Universe Online, while maintaining its level of income.

So imagine my surprise when NCSoft announced today that City of Heroes will go free to play. Free players will have access to heroes and villains up to level 50, with 45 zones of content, 8 archetypes over two characters, and 105 power sets. The veteran rewards program is being discontinued, instead VIP players will receive points for every month they are subscribed, which can be used to purchase the rewards previously found in the veterans program. Veteran reward points will be transferred over, even if you do not subscribe.

There will be a VIP only server, although the current 15 servers will remain intact. Free players will not have access to super groups (guilds), Whisper chat, in-game mail, posting on the forums, limited auction house, and of course queue priority and VIP server access. Free players will have to purchase access to the mission architect, inventions, purchase server transfers, and will not have access to in-game customer support.

Given the success of previous game (don’t forget the 1000% increase in revenue for Champions Online), there is only one way to spell this out for NCsoft: l-o-d-s of e-m-o-n-e, and what does that spell? Loadsa money!

…Probably…

Pottermore, Tribes, and Lessons From The Matrix Online…


The Matrix Online was a great concept, not only because it took the living world presented in the film and transformed it onto a virtual medium that looked and felt a bit like City of Heroes, but because it presented a way to continue the series rather than simply flesh out a never-ending point in the middle of the movies. Whenever I talk of The Matrix Online, I’m obligated to point out that one of the shortcomings of the game was that it was released after the final two movies, when reception of the franchise was rather low.

I was in the process of talking about the long-forgotten Harry Potter MMO when I heard about Pottermore, an upcoming “service” that may or may not be the game we heard talk about dating as far back as the release of Goblet of Fire (and probably even further back). My original topic, which I am replanting here, was whether or not a Harry Potter MMO could release in time to capture the interest in the franchise. Then it struck me, the Harry Potter IP is massive enough that such a question is irrelevant. Unless the game is terrible, there is no reason to assume that reception would be lackluster because of disinterest in the IP. So this topic is no longer about Harry Potter.

Instead, let’s talk about some of the other games that were announced over the past year that would warrant more concern. First in line, I want to talk The Mummy Online, announced one year ago, because I know I’m not the only one who was not only surprised that the franchise warranted enough interest to create a game, but that the series was still running (The Scorpion King 3 releases this December). There is also the issue of translating the franchise into a game, done once before with rather poor results. That being said, The Mummy Online still has a good chance of finding its niche, given a low barrier of entry (free to play game).

To further this topic, I’d like to travel back in time to a game that hasn’t seen light since 2004: Tribes. With Tribes, I only need to say one word to get the fans rallied to plaster this page with graffiti: Vengeance. If the Tribes MMO launches this year, as hoped, the series will have been inactive for seven years. That’s long enough for most of the remaining community to have lost interest in any reboot of the franchise, although time will tell if that is indeed the case.

So we’ll see if some of these old-name IP’s are strong enough to stand the test of time.

Fallen Earth: Going Free To Play, Surprising No One


Back when GamersFirst announced that they would be taking over Fallen Earth’s servers (and retaining the development team), questions immediately started on the free to play transition. Although Icarus and G1 wouldn’t give us concrete information at the time, what they did give us ran down to “well, we’re not saying we are going free to play, but if we did  go free to play, this is what we would do.”

The system will feature several tiers of membership, with plans to expand the cash shop to include items such as crafting time reductions and cosmetic outfits.  There is not yet any information on a concrete date apart from in the next few months, if all goes according to plan.

More on Fallen Earth as it appears.

Corporate Bullying At Its Finest: Threatening Review Copies


“#AlwaysbetonDuke too many went too far with their reviews. w r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.”

The above tweet is from Redner Group, and is gaining a lot of attention on the web. The Redner Group was the PR firm for 2k Games, handling the release of the publicity dealing with Duke Nukem Forever, part of which presumably included choosing who to send review copies to. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the long awaited Duke game has been garnering between mediocre and low scores on many gaming websites. Following a few other words thrown back and forth, and an absolute cluster of players piling on in response, The Redner Group deleted the tweet and issued the following apology:

“I have to apologize to the community. I acted out of pure emotion. I will be sending each of you a private apology. I need to state for the record that 2K had nothing to do with this. I will be calling each of you tomorrow to apologize. Again, I want everyone to know that I was acting on my own. 2K had nothing to do with this. I am so very sorry for what I said.”

This does signify the beauty of the internet. With the continuing popularity of Twitter, saying something stupid and getting away with it has become almost impossible. 2k Games canned the group as a partner, and I think it’s safe to assume more companies will follow in the near future. That being said, emotion or not, Jim Redner (of the Redner Group Redners) comes off as nothing more than the type of bully I deal with on a regular basis here at MMO Fallout.

Just a reminder in the new age of technology: Getting yourself fired is only as far away as 140 characters will take you.

Steam Now Supports Certain Free To Play MMOs


Steam has made quite an interesting announcement today with the release of fourfree to play MMOs on the service. Why is it strange, you may ask? The clients cost nothing in themselves, and you play through Steam what you could simply download from the company’s own website for free. But aside from new publicity, what does this bring for our beloved free to play MMOs?

The games on…download are Global Agenda, Champions Online, Forsaken World, and Spiral Knights, presumably with more on the way if this works out. But I ask again, why should I choose Steam?

  • Champions Online on Steam offers 712 achievements.
  • Spiral Knights offers 57 steam achievements.
  • Spiral Knights is set to receive steam exclusive cash shop items.
  • Other games will no doubt follow with exclusive items.
So if you have Steam and you play or want to play any of these games, why not boot up the system and give them a whirl? If you’re not a fan of Steam or don’t want to download the client, well you’ve probably stopped reading this article already.

What Happened This Week: Three E's Edition


One day I hope to go to E3, maybe when MMO Fallout becomes more popular than the single person reading this article (that would be you). As with every week, I open up with a question: If you wrote a blog like this, at what point do you throw up your hands and say “this isn’t a matter of a company making bad decisions, we’re getting into fraud territory here.” If you’re still wondering, I’m referring to the recent mishap of Star Vault double and triple billing some customers, which lead to me giving serious thought to removing Mortal Online from the list, and warning any potential buyers. My reason was that the whole event brought me back to Mourning, especially seeing Star Vault’s apparent arrogance in the response. Not even an “I’m sorry,” a functionally irrelevant message, but one that could ease an angry soon-to-be-ex-customer.

So I did not remove Mortal Online, although much like with Mythic Entertainment, I’m keeping the articles on the table.

1. I Love You, Hellgate!

I love Hellgate, I’ve given no doubt about that in the past. The game brings me back to the days of Diablo, yet manages to incorporate swords, magic, and guns into a game that is very fun to play. Since us in the west lost Hellgate, the game has also seen the release of Hellgate Tokyo, and a major trove of content updates and upgrades. Luckily, the closed beta wasn’t really closed. Players had the chance of clicking on a button on Hellgate’s website with a 50-50 chance, yet I did not see a single person who was denied access through that button.

The beta was short, too. Cut the first day out because of server outages, and the beta lasted only the weekend. I couldn’t go back to the single player (I own the game from when it was live, and I already had the game installed), not enough Russian players not speaking English just to annoy the players and community managers. The website has “open beta test coming soon” plastered on the top of the forums, so the only remaining factor is how soon is soon. I’ve got a fever, and the only cure is more Hellgate.

2. Defiance Invokes Thoughts Of Tabula Rasa and The Matrix Online

Trion and Syfy are teaming up to create the MMO third person shooter Defiance, that will run side by side with the television show. I am a little concerned that Defiance will wind up in the same hole as another MMO-television tie-in that went horribly. My worry is that the game will be delayed long enough that the whole connectivity is lost, and players will see about as much interaction between the two as Star Wars Galaxies has on the original trilogy.

Still, I do like the idea of a third person shooter MMO, as an estranged player of Tabula Rasa from launch to shutdown, and Trion has already shown their abilities with Rift, so the future looks bright for Defiance.

3. DUST 514 Just Keeps Getting More Interesting

CCP’s upcoming shooter has always fascinated me, and not just because it is the first game that promises to seamlessly connect a PC MMO and a console first person shooter. Not exactly cross-console gaming, but as close as it gets for such a genre crossover. What also intrigues me is how the communities will connect, the hope of fostering a console game where players are expected to be just like the PC counterparts, or as Dr. Cox on scrubs would describe them, “bastard coated bastards with bastard filling.” This is present even in a previous trailer where the ships above, locked in battle, decide to renege on a contract and instead obliterate the entire playfield from above. This will lead to console mercenaries having to decide between a possible huge sum, and the possibility that the Eve players will betray them (if that is indeed a possibility). Hopefully DUST will foster an environment where betrayal is present, but at the same time does not sweep over the game, otherwise the population will drop like a stone. Wolves need sheep to survive, and without sheep they will cannibalize one another until there is no one left.

I want to say I’m surprised by DUST being a Playstation 3 exclusive, but I’m not. Considering the environment DUST is set in (close connection with PC game outside of Microsoft’s control, regular updates to match the growing battlefield and changing territorial ownership, connection to third party servers, etc), I had no doubt from day one that DUST and Microsoft wouldn’t get along. So although I have no confirmation of my hunch, I find it likely that this is another incompatible game with Microsoft’s very strict policies over Live.

4. Let’s Talk About Our Final Fantasy

I know this annoys the Square Enix trolls, so I try to get in as much talk about Final Fantasy XIV as possible. Last time, I mentioned by admiration for Square Enix’s willingness to say “we’re not willing to let a failed launch set the stage for the game.” In the upcoming updates, Square Enix plans to make major changes to the combat system, starting with the introduction of auto-attack. With this update brings the removal of the stamina gauge, whereas effects dependent on the stamina gauge will be changed to reflect this update.

Among the other major changes is the removal of physical levels, altering of job names, and more introduction of notorious monsters, quests, and more. Then the game can work on smaller issues, like the holiday events being the same exact thing: (go to area once every 8 hours, collect items).

5. I Can’t Wait To Play For Free…I Mean Beta Test…

I was surprised when Bioware announced that there will be no open beta for The Old Republic. For a game looking to hit the public spotlight as much as Bioware is, not having a glorified broken free trial before launch seems almost suicidal. Hopefully this means Bioware has their servers figured out and don’t need a stress test for launch (please, contain your chortling). For what it’s worth, open betas are essentially demos of a not yet finished product. While a very small number of the population are there to test the game and give feedback, they are overshadowed by players looking to get a head start in finding bugs to exploit once the game goes live, and free loaders who just want a chance to play a AAA MMO without having to pay the subscription + box fee.

I have to laugh when people complain about betas being nothing more than glorified demos, as they’re generally the ones who will then get in-game and complain that certain features are broken.