While the thread title is an old quote from a politician, this really isn't a thread about politics. Rather, it's about MMORPG monetization.
As you know, different MMORPGs have very different business models. They range from a one-time purchase to a subscription to buying chunks of content to buying cosmetics to buying in-game boosts. Or more commonly these days, more than one of the above, though usually not all of them. And a lot of games put their own spin on a business model, too.
Different business models lead different people to need to pay more or less in order to play a game. And which business model to players prefer? The answer is basically in the thread title: someone else should pay more. My play style shouldn't have to pay so much. I get that the developers need revenue, but they should get it from someone else.
The problem is that that is now nearly everyone's stance. Relying on a heavily pay to win endgame is fine for people who play a lot of alts and never reach that endgame. People who have one character rush to endgame and find that they're expected to pay hundreds of dollars to gear up for it will scream pay to win. Charging instead for character slots naturally elicits the opposite reaction from both categories of players.
Or what about subscriptions? Isn't charging everyone the same fair? People who will play 100 hours per month often think so. People who will play 5 hours per month tend not to. To play the same amount of time in total, they'd have to pay for 20 times as long of a subscription, and hence pay 20 times as much. It's not just a discrepancy between people who have a lot of free time for computer games and people who have much less. It's also a discrepancy between people who focus on only one game at a time versus those who split time between several games--and hence have less time for each.
In some circles, you'll find widespread agreement that charging for cosmetics is fair. It certainly isn't pay to win. You know who thinks charging heavily for cosmetics is a horrible model? People who like cosmetics. They see no reason why they should have to shell out hundreds of dollars to get the outfits that they like while most other people playing the same game pay nothing or nearly so. Shouldn't your outfits be earned in-game?
How about charging for pieces of content? That works fine for people who only have a little time to play the game, as they're not going to reach the next batch of content and have to pay for it very quickly. People who are low level often don't gain any benefit from buying expansions, after all. But people who are going to zip through the game in a couple of weeks don't like being expected to buy every single expansion and DLC and what not and pay a whole lot of money in those first couple of weeks.
And then there is paying for early access to a game, whether nominally an alpha, beta, or whatever. People who want polished games and don't play until well after launch typically don't mind if someone else has to pay for early access. The people who play lots of betas and quit most games before launch tend to think that the betas should be completely free. It's so unfair to charge for a game that is still a mess when you're just asking for players to test it! People who use betas to test games and help developers with useful feedback may have a point there, but hardly anyone in betas will do that, and most just play the game as they would any launched game. "Here are my game preferences and I think all games should cater to them" is not useful feedback, though developers receive quite a lot of it. "Here is how to reproduce a bug" is far more useful, and developers get a lot less of that.
About the only group of people happy to pay a lot of money for games are the whales who expect to be given large in-game advantages over everyone else in exchange for their money. And that's exactly the group that everyone else doesn't want to see games rely heavily on, as people don't want for games to give big advantages to someone else. After all, that's pay to win!
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And that's why developers charge for whatever portion of a game you think ought to be free. They want money from you, too, not just from the other players who play games differently from you. Different types of charges get money from different play styles, and they need money from you, too. So don't whine that it's unfair that they're charging for this or that unless the aggregate amount that you have to pay to play becomes unduly large.
The Term Free to Play, is where everything went wrong, and this brought in a huge influx of players that were looking for a free ride, after all the Game is FREE TO PLAY, so it should be fully free.
Some players make playing a game for free a personal challenge, and I think that really should not even be an option on the table as possible, and that the illusion that the game will be completely free should be dashed to pieces from the very start.
Personally, I think that developers need to get rid of the idea that their game is Free to Play, right from the start, and make it very clear that they are getting a Trial of the Game for free, not the whole kit and caboodle.
Some games have done this well, with being B2P. This just ends any discussion on if the game is F2P or not, it's not, end of discussion.
Other games have allowed for a very limited free account, where you walk in with a huge amount of restrictions on you, right from the start, everything from only getting half exp, to not being able to talk in world chat, some game companies have gone so far as to let players know that free accounts will be deleted within 30 days of inactivity regardless of how long you have played the game for, and they do that, to make sure that you know this is a free trial account, and until you fix that, it will remain a throwaway trash account to them as well.
Anyway. The monetization should fit the game. Some systems work better in some games than others, and it seems a lot of companies tend to try and build catch all systems, which may or may not work for their game that they have built.
a Prime example of this, is Loot Boxes/Gacha, in a game like Gensin Impact, the whole game is built around this system, so it works effortlessly.
Try putting that kind of thing in a game like Mortal Online, and it would infuriate the player base to no end.
So a lot of systems need to be built for the game it is around.
1. A subscription that is all inclusive (set the price accordingly)
2. An option for those that play less to buy ala-carte, want a 5 hour block? 20 hour? Sure!
3. A limited starter experience so folks can try it for free.
4. Box fee I have no issue with, but that's a judgment call by the developers on whether that barrier to entry is worth the cash it raises.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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Oh Free to play ruined lotro went all down hill from the time they made the switch.
WOW has those routine tasks down pat and ESO seems like amateur hour by comparison. And then there's the WOW feature for installing the game in the first place where you can start playing while the game continues to DL and install in the background.
I also hated it when ESO introduced their daily cash shop ad splash screen a couple of years back. They did it under the guise of "daily rewards" but that part of it takes maybe 1/20th of the screen they splash featuring their cash shop specials and new loot crates prominently.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
These studios put out feeler articles to see what interest is there because you can bet they want to release their games as fast as possible.Some will have an idea of expected income and will STOP development to make sure they are not spending as much as they expect to profit.
Most all of the success stories are not based on the business model at all but instead on cheap gimmicks like diving in to the gamers competitive instinct.So game passes work on those type of gamers and players like to look cool in a popular busy game so mounts and costumes also work on those mindsets.
SELDOM ever is the focus on the quality of the game,everything is just targeting a market ,a type of gamer.My point is that a game doesn't need to be any good at all if it targets the right mindset.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
On my mobile games, they make me feel like they value my business. Case in point, just to use an example, I bought something that the transaction did not clear on, something interrupted the service before the delivery, I contacted the in-game CS, I got an e-mail back, saying they are giving me an extra of what I bought, as well as some additional game rewards for my troubles and inconvenience.
Now, sure, it's just digital junk, totally free for them to toss at me to make me happy, so it was a good plan to do that, but when was the last time you ever saw an MMO do the same?
F2P is characterized by no initial purchase as well as no mandatory sub and is heavily marketed featuring both of those things. I certainly won't lay any confusion about it on the consumers.
This is not a case of the sellers meaning one version of "free" and consumers thinking it's the other meaning. They are being sold both meanings of it.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
To try and use it in the other context, Ergo: You do not have the Freedom to Play our game, makes no sense.
So.. it was clearly marketed in the "Free Lunch" category of the word, because the Alternative was "Pay 2 Play", not "Oppressed to Play"
It has never and will never be. Each model has it's strengths and weaknesses in that regard and most will be drawn to whatever they feel is the fairest of that on offer, or most otherwise suited to their preferences.
Also, the claimed ambiguity over the use of the word free in relation to f2p games does not exist. An individual can indeed play such a game with no personal financial cost, making it free at that level. That this can't be so overall isn't the individual player's concern, but that of the provider.
Take a small business man like me. I have 4 companies. Only one has any employees, the other three are about moving money and paying less tax. Let me assure everyone that I still end up paying a heck of a lot of tax. My main business manufactures and fabricates, it grosses around 4K an hour. The business costs around 270k a month to operate. One of my other companies owns the plant and charges my main company rent. Another company lends the main company money and charges it interest. The government likes tax revenue and as long as these companies are all making money and paying tax, the government is happy.
Now being an owner of a company I don’t have to worry about keeping a bunch of greedy quick return stock holders happy. I just have to keep me happy. Stability keeps me happy. 10-15% after tax profit keeps me happy. Going into work one or two days a week makes me happy. I have plenty to risk and easily could make more and more.
All that’s going to do is give me stress and a headache. I already have everything I need.
Im much more concerned with maximizing my time over maximizing my profits.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
If you actually look at the complaints most of them are about HOW not how much they monetize.
If you'd rather play a fantasy game inside a shopping mall with all the "attention shoppers, there's a blue light special in aisle 9" announcements good for you. The "cpmplainers" would rather play a fantasy game without the billboards.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
1) It's completely reasonable for games to ask you to pay hundreds of dollars buying loot boxes to eventually get the one item you want. And then ask you to do it again for another item next month.
2) You don't care about whale bait items and in every game you've played, you've been able to play just fine without them.
3) You've never played games with unreasonable monetization because you can spot them and avoid them without playing them to learn the hard way.
4) You have no idea what I'm talking about on points (1)-(3) because in the particular games you've played, developers have never done anything remotely like that.
Those would be four very different arguments to make, but all of them are consistent with what you said. I'd like to know which argument you're making.
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
You can only sell what people will buy.
Now, with that said, if Whales are what are keeping games alive, then that is what it is, and the hard reality everyone will need to accept, is that if they are not a whale, then they are not the target market of the game, so their opnion on the matter, does not matter.
Sure, they can cry, fuss on the forums, protest, quit the game, even try to shame the whales for keeping the game going, and what have you, but, keep in mind, the response to this, is MMO's Companies building a more single player experience for their whales, where the unwashed cheap masses, need not exist for them, and they, the real money in the game, can continue to play with or without the whiners/free loaders.
Now this is not my dis on anyone, just a statement of how things are and will continue to be.
The only way you matter, is if you spend money and push the market.
In this vein, since I like the idea of DLC packs for games, and for the games I enjoy, I have bought every single DLC pack they have provided me to purchase.
Equally so, if I have money left over, I spend that on the deals I think are honest, and avoid the ones that I think are BS scams.
Which is why, in GW2, I ended up buying unlimited harvesting tools for all my characters after realizing what a scam BL Chests were, and opted to never use their RNG BS again.
Apparently I was not alone, as harvesting tools are a popular seller, so, yes, you can move the market, but like moving fish, you need to give them food to follow, not just splash at the water making a fuss of yourself.
You do have to factor in the cost of gaming laptops, internet connections which are much more than what I spend on the games themselves.
As we've seen, it's quite possible for people to spend thousands monthly on gaming so for some folks it's not all that cheap.
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