I’ve finished GTA3 (okay, minus the last mission) and GTA3:SA, but does the fact that I returned over the course of 3-4 years with each to do so make me more or less invested? In a sense, GTA was a book series I couldn’t put down. I played each for days, I’d imagine. That’s investment.

(The GTA series, I should add, was my standard, “I don’t have time for to pay for WoW” alternative until F2P to 20 started.)

So my answer is investment is measured most simply and accurately by time spent gaming, and that it’s ultimately time invested that makes Castronova work. You don’t get paid for goods/gold because you paid a subscription. It’s because of the amount of time the virtual goods represent.

In older games that were noted for how attached players got, like Angband/Diablo2/Dwarf Fortress (just picking one genre I know about) the original design was for a freeware game. So there was no original intent for profit, the game was just designed to be fun. Same with MU*, they were designed to be fun games for people to mess around in for free. And those were both genres that were quite influential for MMOs.

So one of the questions may be: can a game be that fun and that sticky if maximising profit is a stronger design goal than that.

Money simply isn’t a driving factor for me at any stage. I’ve spent thousands watching a crap football team over my years, and am comfortable that this activity will continue.

The thing I remember with MU* is that they always felt like our game, joint between staff and players. So the more MMOs shift towards a producer/ consumer bias, probably the more I tend to drift away. It’s not about the money, I’m happy to pay for stuff I use. It’s about the relationship between the players and the game and the game producers.

But I may be weird Also pretty sure I’m not the type of player they’re looking for going forwards.

But yes, at least for LegendMUD, being part of something so beautiful that was free certainly (for me at least) cultivated and reinforced a very real feeling of community and community pride.

Most I’ve spent on a single game is WoW – 3 year subs + xpac + going back for cata on a clean account.

GW comes second after that over the last 3 years on cash shop fripperies and lolmerc slots.

FW comes a close tie-in to GW in just over 10 months… (eek).

Love GW, like FW very much, WoW’s not my cup of tea anymore. Don’t think the money *I SPENT* has anything to do with that.

Had a terrible experience in GW2 beta, so not touching that till release.

However… the economically influenced design differences between WoW, GW and FW are huge – perhaps that plays into attachment more directly than whether or not someone spent / how much money someone spent on any given game?

When I’m subbed to a game I will try to make sure that I get my moneys worth and even though other smaller games are picked up but generally my focus is on the subbed title.