BEAT THEM, BOIL THEM, KICK THEM ‘TIL THEIR BLUE

There are only so many ways that you can kill 10 rats.  It has become a phrase that we all use to embody, subject to far ranging differences in tastes, all that is wrong and tedious with MMO development.

But even before we are sent out to kill 10 rats an mmo has to pass the gate, enticing us enough to take it down off a shelf that is increasingly a virtual one, and pay out our hard earned dollars. In the past a heaping helping of hype by a pitchman would have been enough to whip everyone into enough of a fevered frenzy that we would turn on anyone who dared insult what we were sure would become our favorite virtual world of choice. 

But somewhere along the line developers and publishers realized that all this accomplished was the sale of a lot of boxes shipped that sat on shelves either in the store or in homes.  It is at this point a phrase leaps to mind that I once heard come out of an mmo marketing department “over a million shipped” – my immediate response being “shipped?  Shipped where? Down the hall? Across the street?”  Somewhere between subscriber rates that sunk faster than a rock the moment the first free month was finished, and return on invested dollars that made the odds in Los Vegas look good things started to change.  Mind you there are still people who guffaw at what people like Jake Emmert, chief operating officer for Cryptic Studios have to say (see quote below) but we have noted that usually those same people are looking up at him to do it.

“You’re skating uphill if you don’t offer a free-to-play option,” Cryptic Studios head Jack Emmert told Eurogamer. “You’re skating up against World of Warcraft and theoretically SWTOR. That’s your competition. And unless you think your games are as good or better than those – because you also have to overcome their reputation – it’s going to be highly unlikely a large number of people, meaning 200,000-plus, are going to be willing to subscribe to your game. And a lot of companies are making $50-60-70 million bets, and I just don’t see that there’s a market for their products.”  – Jack Emmert

Yesterday we had a chance to talk to Mr. Shannon Posniewski, Executive Producer for Cryptic Studio’s Champions Online about the reaction of companies that are no longer so anxious to make that 70 million dollar bet (if you want to hear what he had to say you will just have to tune in to No Prisoners, No Mercy Show 75 still in production). One of the topics of discussion where the challenges the industry faces just getting the public to take that box down off the shelf and give the mmo a try in the first place.

Fewer players seem ready to risk what is an investment of a lot more time and money than the single player genre.  Increasingly, many players seem to be giving serious thought to a long term relationship that comes with any mmo – often deciding they just aren’t ready for such a long term commitment after being burned so many times before.

Just like Bob Dylan once sang, the time’s they are a’changin.  While the blogosphere still has its share of detractors, more and more those individuals are starting to seem like the image of a wizened old man, parading around wearing a sandwich board yelling “doom, doom, doom”.

“Change is the only constant” – Heraclitus of Ephesus, (c.535 BC – 475 BC)

A heck of a long time ago (I will let you get out the calculator and figure it out exactly) a Greek Philosopher pretty much had an issue sussed that the rest of us have been struggling with ever since.  But that’s the thing about philosophers isn’t it? They usually have the luxury of sitting around philosphizing about life all day long while the rest of us are forced to live it.  That is perhaps why the street-wise philosphies of people like Studs Terkel get discussed  a lot more than barely pronounceable names that rarely go tripping off the tongues of anyone other than PHDs in ivy covered towers.  And before the PHDs out there attack me yes I understand that some PHDs, such as those in areas like ichthyology, are very useful. (Side note: If you doubt whether or not ichthyology is useful, ask the people trying to clean up this mess, and livelihoods it is likely to destroy).

Another interesting aspect of change is that most of the time it seems like the only people who don’t have a problem  with it (other than those who started the change in the first place) are those people who have the time to sit around philosophizing about it.

So its not surprising to me that when Turbine “sprung” it’s free-2-play Lord of the Rings Online (Lotro) business model on everyone (after all it was a likely event one day anyway) that it has stirred up the proverbial kettle.  Typical are the heated opinions espoused by Keen of Keen and Graev (one of our most reads) and Arwulf (also on our news feed I might add).

The major point to be made here is that like it or hate it, Lotro’s free-2-play business model isn’t going to go away unless anyone other than Mr. Jeff Junge decides he doesn’t like it.

Now personally, if the last No Prisoners, No Mercy article on the issue didn’t make it apparent, our (and here I am placing myself in the risky position of speaking for the entire NPNM team) opinion is that Lotro lifetime subscribers come out of the deal smelling not just like a rose, but more like a truckload of roses.  What is more important to remember is is just who is holding the purse strings.  For those one or two of you who aren’t aware of the recent purchase of Turbine by Warner Brothers, now you know.  Now keep in mind that Warner Brothers is in turn owned by Time Warner, inc. – the second largest entertainment conglomerate in the world. And that, my friends, makes the people who own Lord of the Rings Online one big mama jama.

Now the thing about companies that are big mama jama’s is that they didn’t start out that way.  Oh true, some were simply in the right place at the right time.  More often than not, however, they clawed their way to the top, often over the piles of dead competitors.

It is at this point I will invoke the wisdom of Solomon.  Many have heard of the time two women came before Solomon, both claiming to be the mother of the same child.  Solomon, being the wise prophet that he was (and here note that I mean every wordof that last sentence) ordered the child divided in two, one half given to each woman.  When one of the two women asked the wise Solomon to spare the child’s life, the prophet knew instantly who really was the child’s mother and loved him.

I told you that to tell you this.

Think of Lotro as the child in question, and Time Warner as the prophet.   Lotro is brought before Time Warner who must decide what to do with it.  How do we continue to assure its viability? Do we find a way to make it live? Or do we take the more extreme (and as anyone who knows business can tell you more likely) route of simply “killing” the business by selling off what we can and cut our losses.

Time Warner looks at Lotro and says there are two decisions:

Option 1:   Make the game free-2-play:  No, it won’t be popular, and like as not will be seen as many in the community (and oddly enough including those who don’t play the game) as a travesty.  In fact my own knee-jerk reaction was the same way (albeit it lasted about one whole minute).  This change will, in all probability, continue to ensure that Lotro will continue to be seen as an asset by Time Warner, and not a liability to be cut loose.

Option 2:  Milk the Lotro for all it’s worth. Once it passes the break even point, shut down the servers, sell off any capital assets and forget about it. And as I pointed out, THIS is how things are usually done in the business world.

So, ask yourself then. If you were the CEO of Time Warner, and you could wake up in the morning and could make the decision above, which would you chose? Then ask yourself which one most likely reflects someone who really cares about the product that so many have spent so much time working on?

As for me I look at it this way.  First, it certainly seems to me that Lotro’s new business model lives up to the contractual liability of the sale of “lifetime” subscriptions…and then some. But what of the advent of free-to-play games as a whole? Say what you will, in an economy when everyone (and I mean everyone) has less disposable income it is a boon. Think of it this way: with the advent of free-to-play games you will never be in the position of having to stand on a street corner with a sign that says “will work for game time.”

See you online (in Lord of the Rings Online)

Julie Whitefeather

*edit* 

I think one of the more interesting articles on the issue (other than mine of course) is this one over at A Ding World.

Until this morning I had never heard of Mr. Zhan Ye, or of GameVision which is, apparently, the company of which he is president. Let me state that my opinions on his game design are not based on his nationality, nor is race.  Rather they are engendered by the direction in which he thinks western game developers and publishers should take free to play games.

Let’s start by citing two articles over at one of my favorite web sites, Gamasutra:

 The Designer’s Notebook: Selling Hate and Humiliation by Ernest Adams

VGS 09: Game Designers – Everything You Know Is Wrong by Christian Nutt

When Ernest Adams gives his summation of free to play games in the article cited above, he has hit the nail on the head. Here it is:

“Free-to-play is a comparatively new business model for us. Free-to-play (F2P for short) means “sort of free.” The game is free if you have a lot of time, but if you want to advance at anything other than a glacial pace, you have to put money in, and that enables you to get ahead faster. Paying money also gives you an advantage over those players who don’t pay.” – Ernest Adams

That’s the crux of the issue isn’t it? In Western society we are raised (well most of us anyway) being taught the principles of fairness. Those of us in the United States were born in a country that, while still struggling to live up the standard, is based on the very principle that “all men are created equal” (yes I know that while the founding fathers may have espoused that they didn’t exactly live that).   If Mr. Zahn Ye is to believed, it is this very belief in fairness that results in the failure of Western game designers to make a success out of the free to play business model:

 “The goal is to create a highly dynamic community, in which a lot of conflicts, dramas, love, and hate can happen. If it helps to create the tension — the conflicts, the dramas — fairness can be sacrificed. If we believe that a game world is a reflection of the real world, then the concept of fairness in the game should not be taken for granted.” – Zhan Ye, President of Game Vision

In fact game design of free 2 play games is something that has come up in many of the recent No Prisoners, No Mercy show in connection the recent, and now a bit controversial game, Allods Online.  The crux of the issue being a game designed to make it necessary for players to spend copious amounts of money in the cash shop, rather than entice them to do so.

Now I will be the first to not only admit, but support that a game has to be paid for. If the profit margin where the line in the profit and loss statement that reads “net profit before depreciation” doesn’t meet or exceed the cost of the game then it won’t stay open very long.  Still, there is a great deal of difference between designing a game that requires a player spend money to stay in the game (such as the “perfume” sold in the Allods online shop that is necessary to rid the player of a 2 hour death penalty/debuff) and one that makes them want to spend money in the cash shop.

“The most successful F2P games (monetization-wise) in China all give their paying customers HUGE advantages. In the beginning, rich people kill poor people all the time. Balancing is a big issue. Chinese game designers tried different innovative methods over the course of last several years.” – Zhan Ye, President of Game Vision

Ernest Adams points out, and rightly so, that “It doesn’t seem to have occurred to him to create a game in which people simply can’t kill each other at all — a problem Ultima Online solved years ago when they broke the world into PvP and non-PvP shards.” The solution presented by Mr. Ye, as the article by author Adams points out, is as follows:

“Let rich people organize family clans, hire poor people, lead them to fight with other clans, and reward them. Think about who those rich people are in the real world — business owners and factory owners. They manage and lead hundreds of people in the real world and are used to the leadership role. In the F2P world, they still want that feeling. We just offer them that in the game, naturally.”  – Zhan Ye, President of Game Vision

Perhaps the crux of the issue at this point is the game mechanics that have been traditionally used by Western game designers to encourage players to stay in the game.  It is perhaps indicative of western thought patterns that one of the most successful concepts of end game design is to appeal to greed, or as Richard Garriott called World of Warcraft’s end game “a system of inventory management.”  Rather than then being the “harbinger of failure” that he portrayed it as, an appeal to the greed of western gamers has worked, and tremendously so.

But it is a giant leap from “one upping” the neighbors and putting them in chains while you beat them in to submission and press gang them in to your virtual army.  Yet it appears this is one of the directions that Mr. Ye would have Western game designers take our games in his attempt to “enlighten” them.  Here is how, according to the article by Mr. Adams, Mr. Ye defends his position:

“Zhan Ye defends all this in his lecture by likening it to Las Vegas. He points out that gambling takes advantage of a human weakness, but gambling never goes out of fashion; the Chinese free-to-play games take advantage of another human weakness — the desire to dominate other people — and that will never go out of fashion either.” – Ernest Adams

Part of the problem seems to be that games that allow one player to “dominate” another – games which we call “player versus player” are in the minority in Western markets.  At best most game designers stick them in as an afterthought saying “oh yes we should have pvp as well”.  Few companies have been able to duplicate the “wild west” setting that CCP and Eve Online has managed to so successfully create.  While being able to dominate another player may be fun those few players who are able to run roughshod over their counterparts, it is hardly incentive for the downtrodden player to continue playing the game.

The failing of Mr. Ye, is that while he may indeed have a handle on the market in free to play games in other countries, he seems to have a tenuous grasp on the Western market at best.  Mr. Ye is, in short, hoping to create an atmosphere of hatred and contempt between players. He is hoping to stratify virtual worlds into the “haves” and “have not’s”, all the while encouraging the “have not’s” to get used to the subservient position in which he hopes to cast them.

If nothing else, Mr. Ye demonstrates his complete lack of understanding of the very nature of the principles upon which the United States was based when he says the following:

“…the desire to dominate other people — and that will never go out of fashion either.”  – Zhan Ye, President of Game Vision

If Mr. Ye’s contention that in order for the free 2 play business model to succeed in the West, games must be designed to encourage hate, humiliation, and domination then likely the business model really will be a failure in places like the United States. In the end, there is a world of difference between breeding contempt and creating an atmosphere of competition. I can envision the Olympics as managed on the Zhan Ye theory of design…fencing would be done with Howitzer Cannons instead of fencing foils, and the losing team would be forced into servitude in the victors household. If that is the direction he hopes to take gaming, while I can’t speak for any other gamers but the No Prisoners, No Mercy staff, let me send Mr. Zhan Ye, President of Game Vision a clear message:

Go burn a cross on someone else’s virtual lawn.

“No man’s Kwedit is ever as good as his money.” – Edgar Watson Howe

“It is amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares about who gets the Kwedit.” -Robert Yates (this may close to actual kwedit results)

“Be vewy, vewy quiet – I’m hunting on Kwedit” – Elmer Fudd

It is one of life’s eternal problems, and one that every game publisher will have to face at some point in their corporate existence…

How do you take the “free” out of free to play.

As we all know (and will be discussed on show 56 out later today) free to play games work because they are:

A.) Designed to make the game unplayable without enduring enough anguish, angst and general anger that it would kill a bull moose.

B.) Designed to be so grindy that given the option, Sisyphus would rather continue pushing his boulder up a hill for eternity rather than play the game.

And most importantly…

C.) Fifteen million players all play a game that is actually supported through the spending of a 13 year old in his mother’s basement who doesn’t know her child has her credit card yet.

The solution to all these woes is found in the developer’s cash shop. For those one or two of you out there who are scratching there head when the terms “cash shop” and “free to play” are mentioned…well Google it, you probably aren’t gamers, developers or game publishers anyway.

The interesting thing about the problems with free to play game design noted under “A” and “B” is that they instantly go away if you solve “C”. Now there is a company with a product it is calling “Kwedit” that believes it has indeed found the solution for all that is ill with the free to play game business model.

The system has been written about at length by Paul Hyman over at Gamasutra in an article entitled “Free To Play Games, Meet The Virtual IOU” (You can read the article here ). Here is an excerpt from the article that explains how the system works:

At first glance it seems like a “win-win” system right? The system caters to the impulse buyer that will grab the item and pay for it later…and there aren’t any thugs waiting in dark alleys to break your knee caps if you fail to pay. The upside for the consumer is, of course, also the downside for the publisher, as the system has no way to force the player to “pay up” if they choose not to do so – other than, of course, eventually not allowing them to buy on “Kwedit” again. One look at the picture that comes with product (see blow) reminded me of the old “Joe Cool” adds for camel cigarettes of a few decades ago, purposefully aimed at younger generations.

At least as far as western cultures are concerned, from the individual all the way up through the federal government, what has caused so many problems for so long is the whole “buying it on the never-never” attitude. Kwedit’s CEO claims the product gives parents an “incredible teaching moment”. While it may indeed provide a safe environment for buying the pile of pixels without using a credit card, there seems to be more of indoctrination than convenience inherent in the system. Kwedit will very probably teach the younger members of the target that “credit”, as Charles Dickens put it, “is a system whereby a person who can’t pay gets another person who can’t pay to guarantee that he can pay.” Or as a college friend, who attended Brigham Young university put it of his alma matter: “Brigham Young but Bring ‘em any way you can”.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Free to play games in the western market seem to be developing the same trend as some of the extremely popular girls we all knew in high school – usually easy, but never cheap.

Now it seems that Keen from Keen and Graev’s gaming blog, once the great proponent of Allods has sworn off free to play games for good .  We can’t say that we blame him however, all things considered.  But sometimes it’s best not to judge the whole barrel of apples by the single rotten one at the bottom.   Even though Gpotato finally “listened” (read hastily retracted their original prices when players threatened to quit “en masse” before the end of what appears to be a “soft launch”).  

This is, in fact, one of the subjects that my co-host, Fran, Tipa, Saylah and myself discuss on the next show.  Life is circle, Elder Blackwolf used to say, and the gaming industry is the same way. A few years ago you couldn’t make the average western fan of “triple-A” games play a “free to play” game without holding a member of his family hostage.  The success of some free to play games has demanded the attention of more than a few developers, publishers, and even investors.  In many ways it’s like the increased presence of podcasting on the internet.   Those of us who are here at the start are increasingly seeing big companies with names like ABC, CBS and NBC decided they want in on the action (some of which rapidly fell by the wayside).

It’s easy to take a great idea, and in the process of trying to make it your own end up twisting it so far out of proportion that it simply doesn’t work anymore.   There is little doubt in my mind that this is the reason that some of the big communication companies that try their hand at podcasting podfade so fast it set land speed records – they were too busy trying to drive a profit margin through a great idea.  In the same way a very large fence seems to have been constructed amidst the free to play games, and the newcomers to North American shores seem to be falling on one of two sides…

On the first side we see games that have taken a careful look at some of the companies in places like Korea who have been making this way all along …the people who really know what they are doing.   My experience with cash shops in games like these, are those with stocked with items that entice the user to purchase the product.  Sometimes it’s a new outfit not available anywhere else. Don’t think that players will purchase that outfit just to hang out in front of the bank (or in port in the case of Voyage Century)? Think again.  As much as Darren Love’s now famous complaint about the $10.00 horse made its way around the blogosphere, these days it seems like a real deal.

On the other side of the fence are those companies that seem to feel cash shops are more like cash cows.  The concern I have, and that we discussed at length in our next show, is that games are being designed to force you to use the cash shop, and use it often, rather than simply entice you to do so.  It’s a delicate balancing act that not every publisher seems to have the ability to perform.   Even if the developers and publishers out there aren’t sitting down with prices and spread sheet, they should take note that gamers considering playing free to play game are doing just that.

It’s interesting to note that the cash shop that raised such a ruckus (I helped raise a bit of it myself I am not proud to say) over at Star Trek Online (STO) has only two items in it at present.  There is more to come of course, but it is easy to overlook it altogether and simply enjoy the game.

Now I will admit to throwing the last paragraph in there as a tie in…and here it is.  One of my favorite pass times in Star Trek Online (and Champions Online before I switched over to STO) is seeing what other players have done with the remarkable character creator metagame (and believe you me it is such a powerful tool it IS a metagame).  Fewer people make use of the “bio” part of the game where the player can put their character’s history in the Star Trek Online universe. It’s a shame really, because players do check for them and read them – I get regular compliments on mine.  This time I saw such a remarkable job at creating a character that I just had to share it all with you.  Those of you who have seen the new James Cameron movie “Avatar” may recognize a member of the Na’vi (the picture here doesn’t do the player’s character justice).  And yes,  it is such a fantastic idea that I fully intent to play a Na’vi myself.  Another quick note to our readers and listeners:  If you see me in game and send me a tell please tell me who you are as well (i.e. “Hey I know you from Fallen Earth” otherwise you might get mistaken for the bane of the gamers existence, a gold seller).

 See you Online

Julie Whitefeather

(Posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Web Master)

Say whatever you want...

Mae West was right

We thank Tobold for the link from his web site (at the time we were unable to reciprocate due to the means we used to post yesterday). After all, as Mae West was wont to say “Say anything you want about me, just spell the name right” (Thank you Tobold for spelling the name right).

As to his claim that we “completely misinterpret[ed]” what he said, here is another quote from the same article:

 “In more general terms, the issue is that this are basically stealth price increases. Assuming that at least some players will want to keep up with the Joneses without increasing the grind, EA will make more money out of Battlefield Heroes in the future, which is obviously the idea behind the patch. More players are likely to pay SOE for keeping their characters beyond level 5.” – Tobold, Free2Play gone bad (available here)

This is somewhat akin to the Washington Politician, having been called to task on an issue, who thunders and blusters saying “I don’t think you understand all the issues here”. When the title of the post is “Free2Play gone bad” and Tobold is complaining about “stealth price increases” we think we understand just fine thank you.

And had Tobold read to the end of the article (which I am sure he always does as he usually faults others for not doing the same) he would have seen the major point to our article: 

Free to play is a business model in its infancy in western markets. It is going to take some time to match the business model to the gaming habits of a market in which it has never been prominent.  And to that issue we once again point to the must read article over at Gamasutra by Daniel Kromand, What Gamers Think About Microtransactions.

Stealth price increases? To us, this summons up mental images of some anthropomorphic shark laying in wait just off a reef somewhere hoping for some unsuspecting gamer to come swimming by so the game publisher can lash out at the proverbial “arm and a leg cost”.  The simple fact of the matter is that someone has to pay for the development of a game – publishers like to make a little profit, they are just funny that way.

Game publishers are going to have to find the way that best fits the western market and blustering about “stealth price increases” isn’t going to make it any easier.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy team

Someone has to pay for the "free" in "free to play"

“Something similar happened to Free Realms as well. SOE found that apparently too many players were happily playing that game without paying, by sticking to the Free2Play classes and not using the premium classes. So they patched the game and now you can play any class for free, but only until level 5, and you need to pay if you want to play any class beyond that level. I’d say it’s a case of turning an already bad micropayment system into a worse one, but the principle of a patch changing the business deal remains the same. – Tobold, “Free2Play Gone Bad”

As much as we here at No Prisoners No Mercy (NPNM) have come to respect Tobold, the quote above leaves us wondering about the point of view of the publisher of a free2play game. It is at this point we imagine one of our personal heroes, John Smedley” waving a magic wand over a silk top hat announcing to a host of gamers, “And now for my next magical trick I will pull development money out of my ass.”

The simple fact of the matter is an eternal truth. Your grandparents said it, our grandparents said it. It has always been true – say it with us:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH

The money to keep development studios going is a staggering amount – as much as one million dollars a month in some cases (if you want to know what industry professional said that you will just have to listen to NPNM show 50, now out on early release). If you set your personal “way back” machine for just two years ago you will find a western market where the “free to play” label had a stigma associated with it normally reserved for lepers.  While things have changed, the obvious point here is that the viewpoint of microtransaction supported games is a new advent for the western gamer. The business model is still in its infancy with some companies like Turbine dipping their toes in the water while other companies like Electronic Arts sit back and wait for Turbine to tell them if the water is hot.

So while it may come as a shock and surprise to some players that the “free” in “free to play” isn’t always free, we here a NPNM expect it.  After all, the money has to come from somewhere and if the majority of the players in a game are happy to sit back and let “the other guy” pay for further development and support of a game, there can rapidly reach a point at where there are no “other guys” paying the bills. At that point it becomes a “change or die” situation for game publishers.

To that end, there is a fantastic article over at Gamasutra.com that is a MUST READ for anyone interested in the advent of Free to Play gaming in western markets (article available here). Here is a quote from the article:

The PC gaming market is often depicted as either entirely dead or at least in a dire crisis. A major cause for this crisis is of course not that the PC is finished as a gaming platform, but rather that a high level of piracy is undermining the traditional retail model.”  - Daniel Kromand, What Gamers Think About Microtransactions

Since the first free2play game hit western shores, they have been seen as either the savior of all that is wrong with the world or some weird anthropomorphized embodiment of the anti-christ. So far, at least, no one seems to have no opinion. While we can understand when players scream about things like “unfair advantage” there seems to be many gamers who are content to hope that everyone else but them is “the other guy” who will pay to keep the servers open. In his article, Daniel Kromand addresses this issue directly:

“Consumers obtain goods that have a physical presence in the game world, a sword for example, but also realize that the virtual reproduction of the item is costless: there is in fact no logical reason as to why the developer needs the sword back. The clash can easily produce annoyance if the players believe that they have to agree to unfavorable conditions that only serve to maximize the developer’s revenue.” - Daniel Kromand, What Gamers Think About Microtransactions

This, of course, is exactly what is happening with Free Realms – having failed to predict gamer behavior, Sony is forced to say “ok, we tried it your way, now let’s try something else”.  And who can blame them? Not only are microtransaction business models far from being set in stone, they are still in the experimental stages and seem to have more iterations than there are fish in the sea (Depending, of course, what major body of water you have in mind).

THE SQUEAKIEST WHEEL

The squeakiest wheels, of course, are those players who feel that microtransactions give other players an unfair advantage. When Cryptic came out with Cryptic bucks most players (including me sadly – that is a bit of crow I had to eat) thought the world as we know it had come to an end. This is especially true if a publisher like Activision/Blizzard is seen to be trying to introduces the whole “subscription plus microtransactions” business model after the fact.  Witness the advent of the sale of those cute Pandas in World of Warcraft as an example – you would think that Rob Pardo had said untoward things about player’s mothers.

But when players are done worrying about playing the dozens with Rob Pardo and Bobby Kotick, perhaps they would see things differently if those publishers with microtransactions on their minds require a certain player ranking to use virtual items bought with real cash. This is the suggestion of author Daniel Kromand:

“It therefore seems sensible to include effort-related rank in the game and require a certain rank for the premium items…The rank requirement means that a buyer has to play for a while before he can use the asset. This system both diminishes the influence of outside wealth on game balancing and also gives the player a tangible reward for advancing in the game. “- Daniel Kromand, What Gamers Think About Microtransactions

IF YOU CAN’T RUN WITH THE BIG DOGS, STAY ON THE PORCH…

The author quotes one of those individuals he interviewed for his article with saying, “If you want to play with the big boys, you have to pay.” While there may be players who, given the opportunity, will pay good money to keep up with the crowd, another problem (from the publishers point of view) has to be faced.

“It was not unusual that the players had left the game cold turkey and deleted their accounts. These quotes reveal a general problem that often — in the words of the respondents — is equated to drug abuse, although with some ironic undertone. A large number of respondents had quit their player accounts solely due to restraint issues.” –  Daniel Kromand, What Gamers Think About Microtransactions

The idea here, of course, is that players often stay longer in a game than they intended to simply for the sake of their friends. If the publisher is lucky, like a marriage made in heaven (or perhaps hell in this case) the couple (the couple in this case being the player and the game) will stay together for the sake of the kids (the other players on their friends list). In fact this was one of the issues that Tipa discussed with us on No Prisoners No Mercy show number 49, telling us that she reached the point where she resented her online friends for not being willing to move on to another game.  Now, of course, the advent of encouraging “group play” takes on a whole other meaning when it comes to free2play.  Games that create a social atmosphere, above and beyond a quest line to complete, will no doubt be those with the servers that remain open.  Perhaps the application of this is why, rather than Rob Pardo being in league with the devil as I have always maintained, the virtual shores of Azeroth remain open so all may yet set sail for them.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team