On the other side I played Magic: the Gathering and I couldn’t resist. I spent a few thousands on cards until I quit, twice. I will never touch that great game (M:TG) again, that’s the only way I can keep this under control. I can leave, but I can’t resist.

It’s good for Turbine because they are getting customers who in the normal run of things would have used a different DDO provider. It’s free money, basically they have annexed all the new DDO players in Codemasters’ turf because CM is hamstrung by this rotten court case.

For Turbine it’s free money.

The reason why they do this is because the base sub fee hasn’t changed in ten years. Development costs keep rising, and I’m guessing they think item malls are going to be less harmful than rising sub prices on everyone in terms of player retention.

Honestly, this development is not only making me reconsider my commitment to WoW it’s making me reconsider my commitment to gaming period. Chaos is not entertaining to me; if there is nothing I can rely on I’d rather go back to single player where I know what I’m buying from the start. Single player is more limiting but it’s also more certain and certainty has value to me.

But what worked and works for DDO does not have to apply for other games as well.

(besides that, I wonder that people suddenly love DDO now, it is not that different besides the payment scheme. And I know that many people quit in the early days because of the constant need for grouping in later areas and just because they got bored for this or that reason… I am amazed that the game still seems to be going strong. But it could turn out like Free Realms and lose a lot of steam. I am not commenting on Sony’s fatal and fundamental change of the payment scheme which will negatively affect their game very soon.)

They are heading a bit towards a pay for content approach of their subscription game, LOTRO, too. The extra shared bank storage is a game mechanic, but they implemented it in a way that you can or rather MUST buy it, pay for it.

While the raids and the skirmish system are probably more than they added in their book updates that added the Evendim and Forochel areas, one must remember that these areas were totally for free and not part of various rather complex “pay this for that and get that discount” schemes. The same also happened in Guild Wars, which was initially totally micro-transaction free, the Sorrow’s Furnace area was a massive update for free. They never ever produced something of similar scale and quality for free. The much small “BMP” (Bonus Mission Package) was part of a promotion and was later sold through the store, as were extra storage pane (=more chests, basically) suddenly available for quite some not so “micro” money.

The innocent and cute xmas presents, also connected to charity for PR’s sake, opened the doors to the item mall that will become less and less innocent.

Basically, they try how far they can go. Greed usually tries till it burns its fingers. And this is sad, we seem to live in an area where MARKETING and PAYMENT SCHEMES are all the new buzz and hype, especially micro-transactions.

I would say they should rather make cool games and then be smart enough to find the fitting and proper payment scheme for it.

Adding RMT on top of subscription based games is an alarming trend and if it is good for anyone, only for the developers, for sure not for the greater good of the players.

I had been thinking more of going to the cinema to see a film and getting gouged on prices for drinks and snacks because you’re a captive audience.

But I like the band analogy.

More money doesn’t automatically mean that you will be able to speed up development, especially not if you already have enough money.

(I don’t say they should speed up things or that they should spend more money.)