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Raph Koster on GaaS as an MMO Business Strategy
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
Worth a read: www.raphkoster.com/2019/01/30/what-drives-retention/#more-33564
He argues that GaaS is a business strategy, and F2P is a revenue model.
Don't shoot the messenger. I'm not advocating for this. Just felt he had some interesting thoughts.
P.S.
And if you see this Raph, no I have still not forgiven you for the lack of a path to Jedi at SWG launch, and the later hologrind. Grrrr.
He argues that GaaS is a business strategy, and F2P is a revenue model.
Don't shoot the messenger. I'm not advocating for this. Just felt he had some interesting thoughts.
P.S.
And if you see this Raph, no I have still not forgiven you for the lack of a path to Jedi at SWG launch, and the later hologrind. Grrrr.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Comments
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I liked his thought on PvP:
"Con: Watch out for zero-sum play (one winner, one loser) causing players to be chased out." All combat is kind of zero-sum, though it's OK vs monsters
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
F2P never mandated anything either and look where that got us. If you give a gaming company more was to charge and more ways to charge in dodgy ways they always end up taking and taking and taking...
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Not only that but when something is perceived has having negative connotations what do you do? You change the name.
But in this example, GaaS got a bad reputation straight out of the starting blocks, so that did not work out well for them.
Who do you think stock holders are? Sure, big business conglomerates and...me. Guess what my job is, management and who do you suppose put my children through college?
I'm counting big time for retirement in the money my 401K makes from investing in companies that are profitable and pay solid returns to shareholders.
Business is usually logical and not always evil, they just try to extract what the market will bear, a fundamental tenant of capitalism, especially when it comes to discretionary products such as games.
To do less does a disservice to everyone.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Their aim is always to make more, and no reason to fault them for it. How they do so, however, is definitely something that can, should, and does include restrictions and ethics.
The pursuit of wealth cannot be allowed to be pursued freely without any guiding principles towards how such a pursuit affects the larger society. It's shown time and again to lead to exploitation and fraud.
Even whales will only spend money on games that look interesting or provide entertainment to them. They're too important, and their time is too valuable, to waste otherwise.
So even they agree with me that good game play/fun/entertainment is most important, IMnotsoHO.
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
This is cultural appropriation at its ugliest and worst. May I suggest SFG for service funded games? No one cares about the Giants, SF gate, or special forces group.
I mean, imagine playing monopoly and some friend says he doesn't have time to play so he drops $100 real money and takes Boardwalk.
Yes developers can sell what will be bought. I guess my 60 dollar purchase compares little to a guy who is spending in the thousands each month. But sooner or later exploitive tactics in an industry with kids as a large audience will only bring trouble.
If they left it out they could focus on all the good things about a game that make it successful instead of splitting half their time on figuring out ways to make that shit work.
Idk...
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I can see what Koster means in the sense of GaaS being a strategy, in that it's fundamentally just the evolution of expansions to dlc to a rolling stream of game content over time. Problem is when that rolling stream puts monetization as first priority over further enhancing a title, especially if the core of that title is itself, incomplete.
Supply and demand don't even figure in anymore. It is a rarity for me to see prices ever come down. Wanting "more" is the number one cause for inflation. It matters not anymore whether a crop was good or bad. Prices will go up. Almost always. Housing costs go up because everyone wants more.
I see a lot of people talk about "paying the developers", but most work on salary, and unless they have some kind of company stock options, they see no more than their salary. Paying more for a game does NOT go to developers. It goes to management and stockholders.
As I said, I'm not against making money. It is the incessant greed I abhor.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
For me, I don't want cash shops. No matter what is sold, it's not earned through game play. And that's a huge negative for me. And it inevitably expands.
However, I'm not against players selling things to other players, if they've earned said "things" through legitimate game play.
That offers a way to turn "cash shop revenues" into "Pay-To-Play" revenues.
Of course the game has to be a great game for that to work.
Which is a desirable thing, I think.
This brings me to a subject close to my heart. Rarity.
Every aspect of the game can have a lot of rarity added. So much so that every player, no matter what they like to do in-game, can have repeated finds of semi-rare things, and once in a while "more rare" things, and always a chance for something unique. And everything in between.
Then there's construction. If it takes time, costs, additions, and much expertise to build a Castle, then that Castle has a value to sell to other players.
I'm sure there's a lot of ways to add real world cash making opportunities to players, without actually selling things in Cash Shops. And making paying a subscription quite acceptable to players who want a great game without the cheapness of Cash Shops.
Edit 1, That adds a big incentive to retention.
Edit 2, Rarity can come in two form.
- Rare drops
- time intensive effort.
(- Edit, see my next post on rare skills, to make 3. Sort of a rare drop, but different.)
An example of the last, taken from real world history.
Small shells that can be used to make a unique and beautiful color. But collecting enough of these took a lot of time. So you have a semi-rare color that players would desire for their cloaks, tunics, etc.
Now combine both of these forms of rarity.
Add a unique spawn, a single giant shellfish of that type, and when it's crushed and used to create said color, it's noticeably different, and unique.
Once upon a time....
Unique, or semi-rare, skill abilities.
As in, a Blacksmith finds or buys an ancient one of a kind Tome, where he learns how to make a uniquely shaped sword. The Tome is destroyed in the reading, but forevermore the Blacksmith is the only one in the game who can make that particular style of sword effectively.
That idea can be modified, according to game designer goals. Maybe the player can write another Tome to sell, but loses his own knowledge in the process.
Or maybe he's not totally unique, just vary rare if a few more of this particular Tome turns up in the ancient dungeons and ruins of the world.
Once upon a time....
Players have to own something out of it all, if you want them to stay. The problem is that publishers don't want players to own anything. They see it as cutting into their platform, when players own and sell what they own. But players have got to have a stake it the game. Otherwise, they are just tourists who will try to sneak in on the cheap.
What replaced GaaS was the private instance (Minecraft the best example). It allows ownership plu gives you the social aspect.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
But I don't get the full loot with this.
Now if somehow another player can steal said knowledge or skill from another player, then I'd agree.
Which, in a really deep, hardcore game could be pretty cool, if the game can be designed so the players aren't leaving in mass because of this and other PvP actions.
Once upon a time....
GAAS is about the long revenue tail. It is about providing content over time, and monetizing that content as you go.
F2P is about not charging anything upfront, and then monetizing at key intervals after that.
GAAS can have an upfront charge (so it would not be F2P).
F2P can have a fixed amount of content ( so it would not be a service) which is just monetized later.
Having said this, a game can both be F2P, and GAAS... but it does not HAVE to be.