Brother Laz
12-10-2008, 04:42
The online racing game Trackmania has a lot to teach game developers in terms of what is an acceptable fee for online play.
You can get the free game Trackmania Nations Forever. It is a full game with all options and one environment - which is usually enough for anyone thanks to the track editor. If you buy Trackmania United Forever, you get six more environments and you can play on the same servers as the Nations people plus your own United servers, which hardly even exist.
So you are effectively paying €30 for a bunch of useless environments which no one plays, the ability to download (or make) a custom car, and an ingame avatar. That's it! Yet people buy the full game despite being well aware of the above.
Why? Because Nations Forever is a complete game. It is complete and fun to play. And if you really are a fan and you spend a lot of time online, you may want to buy the boxed game and get yourself a fancy car.
......
Of course, Trackmania has much lower production values than D3 and going with the free game model would be stupid for Blizzard. Just assume that €30 is essentially a multiplayer premium fee and that the standard Blizzard-grade game costs €50 instead of €0.
The point remains: people are willing to pay quite a premium for not much of a benefit if they feel like it's their own choice to do it and they actually want the benefit of their own free will.
......
Hellgate London failed due in large part to the subscription system. Again, you didn't get much in terms of extra content for your money - you got more than Trackmania, but at a higher final price tag because it had a monthly fee.
So what went wrong? Subscribers got the GOOD STUFF. The new Stonehenge area was tiny, but it had the best loot and experience. If you didn't subscribe, you got a microscopic stash and no respecs.
That wasn't a matter of buying a subscription because you liked the game, because there wasn't much to like about being left behind and forced to struggle with UI limitations unless you paid up.
London burned.
......
Morals:
- Make the game worth playing if you don't subscribe. Allow people to have fun, be competitive, win races-- I mean, get good items, and then when they are addicted they will seek out the additional paid content by themselves.
I'm sure if Trackmania made the paid United cars faster than the Nations ones, it would have failed badly because then you would be forced to upgrade if you wanted to play to win.
If people like the free multiplayer, they'll gladly pay a lot for extra options and they'll love the options. And as a company, you'll be able to charge €30 for very little content - easy money, that.
- A single upfront payment is more attractive than a monthly fee. It is much better to pay €30 once than €10 per month, because eventually when you play less or find something else to do for a month or two you'll 'LOSE' the benefits and this may be the trigger to quit the game entirely.
Also, it relieves players from having to make the value calculation every month - 'Is that Ferrari really worth my €10? Is it still worth my €10? How about this month?'.
- Even if you think a monthly fee is not too expensive, a lot of other people do. Without the free online option, Trackmania would have been a failure.
......
So my proposal for a paid b.net 2.0 would be:
* Full game functionality in terms of gameplay mechanics so people who buy the box and go online without paying extra are competitive so they actually keep playing, and so you don't lose box sales.
* Desirable but non-critical 'vanity' content (ingame and forum avatar, additional character faces/hair/skin colours, customisable armor graphics [colour, additional spikes and glows and stuff], guilds, character transfers, a website to trade items when you're not playing, 'lore quests' that explore the world of Sanctuary but don't necessarily yield character improvements, perhaps high resolution textures!) would cost an upfront fee.
* To actually bring in enough income to consider this model, this fee would be quite expensive. The fans will pay a fortune for an avatar, armor spikes or a package of lore quests.
Ps. If you think people should cowboy up and pay, remember: every player who goes to find another game that is free to play monthly means fewer games on b.net means a deader multiplayer world means less enjoyment for you.
You can get the free game Trackmania Nations Forever. It is a full game with all options and one environment - which is usually enough for anyone thanks to the track editor. If you buy Trackmania United Forever, you get six more environments and you can play on the same servers as the Nations people plus your own United servers, which hardly even exist.
So you are effectively paying €30 for a bunch of useless environments which no one plays, the ability to download (or make) a custom car, and an ingame avatar. That's it! Yet people buy the full game despite being well aware of the above.
Why? Because Nations Forever is a complete game. It is complete and fun to play. And if you really are a fan and you spend a lot of time online, you may want to buy the boxed game and get yourself a fancy car.
......
Of course, Trackmania has much lower production values than D3 and going with the free game model would be stupid for Blizzard. Just assume that €30 is essentially a multiplayer premium fee and that the standard Blizzard-grade game costs €50 instead of €0.
The point remains: people are willing to pay quite a premium for not much of a benefit if they feel like it's their own choice to do it and they actually want the benefit of their own free will.
......
Hellgate London failed due in large part to the subscription system. Again, you didn't get much in terms of extra content for your money - you got more than Trackmania, but at a higher final price tag because it had a monthly fee.
So what went wrong? Subscribers got the GOOD STUFF. The new Stonehenge area was tiny, but it had the best loot and experience. If you didn't subscribe, you got a microscopic stash and no respecs.
That wasn't a matter of buying a subscription because you liked the game, because there wasn't much to like about being left behind and forced to struggle with UI limitations unless you paid up.
London burned.
......
Morals:
- Make the game worth playing if you don't subscribe. Allow people to have fun, be competitive, win races-- I mean, get good items, and then when they are addicted they will seek out the additional paid content by themselves.
I'm sure if Trackmania made the paid United cars faster than the Nations ones, it would have failed badly because then you would be forced to upgrade if you wanted to play to win.
If people like the free multiplayer, they'll gladly pay a lot for extra options and they'll love the options. And as a company, you'll be able to charge €30 for very little content - easy money, that.
- A single upfront payment is more attractive than a monthly fee. It is much better to pay €30 once than €10 per month, because eventually when you play less or find something else to do for a month or two you'll 'LOSE' the benefits and this may be the trigger to quit the game entirely.
Also, it relieves players from having to make the value calculation every month - 'Is that Ferrari really worth my €10? Is it still worth my €10? How about this month?'.
- Even if you think a monthly fee is not too expensive, a lot of other people do. Without the free online option, Trackmania would have been a failure.
......
So my proposal for a paid b.net 2.0 would be:
* Full game functionality in terms of gameplay mechanics so people who buy the box and go online without paying extra are competitive so they actually keep playing, and so you don't lose box sales.
* Desirable but non-critical 'vanity' content (ingame and forum avatar, additional character faces/hair/skin colours, customisable armor graphics [colour, additional spikes and glows and stuff], guilds, character transfers, a website to trade items when you're not playing, 'lore quests' that explore the world of Sanctuary but don't necessarily yield character improvements, perhaps high resolution textures!) would cost an upfront fee.
* To actually bring in enough income to consider this model, this fee would be quite expensive. The fans will pay a fortune for an avatar, armor spikes or a package of lore quests.
Ps. If you think people should cowboy up and pay, remember: every player who goes to find another game that is free to play monthly means fewer games on b.net means a deader multiplayer world means less enjoyment for you.