In other words, it’s not something inherent to the “F2P” model, it’s just what people *do*. I think that’s a critical point, and I’m golas Modran made it.

As for making money, Puzzle Pirates makes more money on their MT servers than on their sub servers. They posted the numbers for public consumption; the link is over at my place. It won’t work for every game, but it’s demonstrably profitable.

But basically, MMO companies have similar goals to mobile phone telcos. Their business has a network effect. They want to reduce churn while simultaneously attracting users from other networks. They want to keep people on their network.

So I dunno how US networks trick you into going over your limits, but the general idea is that you pick the sub that matches your usage pattern, and pick one that gives you a wee bit of headroom if you think you’ll need it.

I like the idea of making more money by making more people happy, but the F2P model actually seems based on having fewer people pay, just they pay enough to cover the rest. I suppose the guys who play for free are happier, but does the model actually make more money I wonder?

I’ve always thought that Barrens Chat was a good counter to that stance.

The whole point of market segmentation is to make more money by making more people happy. More isn’t always better, but the enemy of “excellent” is “enough”.

The difference between these two cases is at the heart of role-playing games, and the difference between a character and the player who role-plays that character. In the first case, the character did the grinding (of course, taking up the player’s time). In the second case, the character did nothing to deserve the item.

If we are to find an RPG immersive, we have to believe the fantasy world we are in. We have to believe in the characters we encounter. When characters get something in-game for no apparent in-game reason, it just becomes less believeable. That’s why Blizzard are against gold-sellers. And that’s why I am, too.

I’m not sure that simply increasing the number of players would optimize the game context (obviously, this is from player not producer perspective). As Spinks points out, there is a network effect – the more players, the more value in the game. But the $14 a month or so seems to attract enough players to satisfy that.

I agree it’s really easy to do microtransactions in games poorly. The more I read, the more I think the recently announced changes to DDO are going to fuel a lot of rants against the business model, unfortunately. A good microtransaction system has to make it feel like the game is offering the players conveniences, instead of charging a nickel here or a dime there for more content. The core game still has to be good and fun, because the free players are still contributing to the community. If the core game is too thin, then people may get frustrated and leave instead of opening wallets like some hope.

We Fly Spitfires wrote:
What’s to stop the developers introducing the next best must-have item and making it RMT only?

What’s to stop developers from introducing the next best must-have item and putting it behind months-long faction grinds? The same thing. Some people don’t mind doing daily quests for a few months to get the reputation needed, while others don’t mind spending $15 for the same thing. Some people could do either one, and some wouldn’t want to do either.

Microtransactions aren’t going to make everyone happy. But, the business model appeals to different people than the subscription model does, which is good. People can go play subscription games, while others can play microtransaction/free to play games and everyone can have fun. One game doesn’t have to fit all.

But let’s define fair here as meaning that you get a deal with which you are happy. And it’s independent of what anyone else is doing or paying except that you know they got offered the same deal.

So is your main issue with subs in general, or just with the current pricing? If you pay a one off fee for a year, is it really that different from paying for access on a zone by zone basis if it works out at the same amount?

I rather dislike charging for content on principle because it leaves ownership a bit vague. You don’t own the content (at least, not in any current game). You are paying for access to the content as part of network-based service – it is not the same as buying an offline game and shouldn’t be sold as if it is – and I’d be happier with a charging scheme that reflected that. I’m also not so sure if it makes sense to sell content as if the games were actually permanent because in many cases, they aren’t.