South Korea's Free Computer Game Business Model Hits the US

Anti-Globalism writes with this excerpt from AFP via Yahoo! News: "Seoul-based 'free-to-play' computer game titan Nexon on Wednesday blasted into the US videogame arena with a 'Combat Arms' online first-person shooter title that makes its cash from optional 'micro-transactions' by players. The game makes its money from players that buy animated helmets, outfits, emblems or other virtual items to customize in-game characters. To keep the battlefield even, players earn experience or advanced weaponry by skill so people essentially can't pay for power. ... Startups and established game makers including Japanese goliath Sony are venturing into the free computer game market, according to DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole. 'It looks like it could be very big,' Cole told AFP. 'It's one of the things everybody seems to be looking at. The challenge is it is a very new model and it remains to be seen whether customers used to a free model will be tight when it comes to actually spending money on it.'"

Hrmm

So essentially, people will be paying for pieces of flair on their characters?

How many pieces of flair should you wear to express yourself?

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Stan wears 37.

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Especially in an FPS. Wouldn't an animated helmet scream 'Shoot here!'

Re:Hrmm

So you're arguing that we should bring the class distinction into the gaming world as well? The rich get the most powerful items / weapons because they can be afforded, and the poor are left with either purchasing beyond their means, or being hindered? and, yes I do understand this is probably minimal amounts of money, but the more resources controlled in this manner, the more the cumulative costs will be.

This would also means that the gaming companies will most likely incrementally increase the power of items to keep people purchasing new thing (and to perhaps keep people interested in this type of system). Most MMORPG's do this with their incremental additions of more powerful equipment, levels and stats with game expansions. The only difference is that they encourage equal opportunity, in that they ban external trading.

I don't know about you... but I prefer to play in a system that encourages equal opportunity.

- John

A new age of micro-transactions?

We've heard about micropayments for years, mostly for web content. But clearly this kind of market for virtual goods emerged in WoW -- without the explicit support of the company. It looks like the vendors are catching up! Still, there are lots of games that aren't based on continuous user profiles, and where the imbalance created might be significant and disruptive.

The other concern I have is about how to manage this between kids and parents. It's one thing to have a fixed up-front payment to buy a game, but to have kids (teens) linking credit cards (or even pre-paying) to a game seems like it might not go over well with the parents...

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]

Re:A new age of micro-transactions?

So far as teenagers linking credit cards to the games.

We've had pre-paid charge cards for online transactions for a while, with the explicit purpose of allowing minors access online "credit" transactions without involving the related credit approvals required with "real" credit lines.

This sounds like an excellent place to apply it.

You get X dollars a month to spend on this game, when you run out you run out.

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But clearly this kind of market for virtual goods emerged in WoW -- without the explicit support of the company.

The big difference here is that with WoW, the virtual goods must first be farmed by a player or a bot. While this might not sound so bad, having a bot farm herbs 24 hours a day denies them from other players and can affect realm economy since the gold farmers will generally flood the auction house with stupid prices. While you could theoretically get a person to play for that long, or even in shifts, it's very uncommon.

The main legal issue here is that you're trying to sell a virtual property that is not

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i think MapleStory and Second Life both came out before WoW, so WoW certainly wasn't the first game to create a market for virtual goods.

and no one is saying that all games will become free and supported by micropayments, just that this model is gaining a lot of attention as there have been several successful releases.

if you RTFA, the author talks about keeping the playing field even by not allowing players to pay for power. in Maple Story the micropayments were used for buying cosmetic items to customize

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in Maple Story the micropayments were used for buying cosmetic items to customize your character's appearance. so you could purchase sun glasses, designer shoes, hats, etc. but they have no effect on gameplay.

Which is complete nonsense now, as they do have numerous items that "affect gameplay" to a significant degree, such as experience rate boosters, drop rate boosters, an item for penalty-free resurrection (death usually results in the loss of 3-10% of that levels EXP, which can be huge (double-digit hours of training) at higher levels), pets that allow automatic looting and automatic healing (if your HP or mana drops below a set point, it will automatically use a potion if you have the item to do so), among o

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http://kingdomofloathing.com/ [kingdomofloathing.com]

Way too much time invested. You can buy an IOTM or the likes but you can also work to earn them via earning meat.

An interesting market experiment...

I have played several Korean MMO's (with engrish interfaces, of course) based off the business model (Maple Story, Flyff and the like), and from my experience, most people can't/won't spend money on them, but those that do tend to spend big, customizing every piece of equipment they possible can. The fact that these games are still running several years on is proof of profitability.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. It might be quite nice to play a free game with decent english ingame.

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MAny MMO's could be profitable. However, it seesm that instead of making great games for a nitch market, companies are more interested in making the next "WoW".

War of Conquest

War of Conquest [warofconquest.com] has a similar model. Its free, but you can buy upgrades, items, tech, etc. They even give out points that you convert to either cash or buy more items, tech, etc.

Not nearly the first

Nice. This article forgets that there are tons of free-to-play MMO's already available in the US.
Knight Online
Fly For Fun
Granado Espada

And lets not forget our own domestic free-to-plays, such as Guild Wars, Minions of Mirth, Graal Online and the like.

Here's a great resource for all of these- http://www.gameogre.com/ [gameogre.com]

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You're missing the point of the article. The article was detailing how American developers are getting in to the 'free-to-play' system that is traditionally used by most Korean developers. The first three games you mentioned are all made by foreign devs. Guild Wars costs money to play, MoM has two clients (one paid and one free, balance issues much?), and Graal Online is not cool enough to have a wiki article. In the 'free-to-play' games being speculated about, the entire client and entire experience is F

Question:

Why would I care what my character looks like in a first person shooter? Looking at the combat arms website, it suggests that the stuff that you buy is cosmetic, which makes sense in an MMO or even a third-person stylized action game like GunZ, but in a military style shooter? You won't be able to see your character in game, so the extra stuff is only a display of wealth. Plus (and this may be simple personal preference), customized military gear doesn't seem as exciting as shining armor or flashy action anti-hero clothes.

That said I hope it works out for them, but I'll take my $50 games with everything included.

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you don't have to customize your character. that's the whole point. you can play it completely for free if you want to, and many people do. most people who play MapleStory do not spend any money on it, but it's still profitable enough to be a huge success.

and the whole point of customizing how your character looks is for it to be seen by others, not you. do you buy expensive clothes just to look at yourself in the mirror all day? it's just like how people wear fancy clothes in real life to impress others. y

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(I did RTFA). That's what I said--it makes sense in an MMO, especially since a. You can see yourself and b. MMO's are more social in general. It's great to show off your gear in a city or to whichever shmuck happens to walk by. But this is an FPS, which as far as I can see from the site doesn't have MMO trappings like cities or general social areas. It seems to be very much a deathmatch FPS, which means that you're less likely to be standing around enjoying the eye candy and more likely to be running,

Kingdom of Loathing

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ [kingdomofloathing.com]

Different type of game entirely, but same basic business model. And they've been doing things that way for 4 years now. Free to play, but $10 gets you a nifty trinket.

Yes, the business model works in principle and in practice. And it's about time that more genres of games that use that model become available.

This is old news ..

Every MMO to appear in Korea for several years now have been based on the Free-To-Play model.
Even those who were launched on a subscription one migrated to it, forcing their western licencees to do the same.

Example :
_RF Online (CodeMasters dragged their feet but had to accept the free to play model)
_Granado Espada aka Sword of the New World (K2 Networks wanted a hybrid system, but had to change to a pure free to play one)

Even legacy power house Lineage 2 from NCsoft is heading towards a cash shop item addition to its subscription based model.

More recent ones like Perfect World are free to play from the start.
To sum up :
Free-to-Play IS the de facto business model in asia, and has been for years. The western licencees also are bound to use free to play.

Netcraft confirms...

Only old people in Korea get cheap car insurance for playing free video games.

WOW so many bad facts

www.k2network.met Has been bringing in Free to play microtransaction games into the US for awhile like 3 years Warrock an FPS and Sword of the New WOrld... Hell even Nexon brought had one like 6 years ago in the US with Shattered Galaxies. As for Virtual markets... EQII runs it own, and even UO had a strong real money economy going.

Pah Second Life has them beat

On these things you pay money to customize your player - clothe them etc.

On second life you pay money so you can take off your clothes and not be the only one lacking a virtual penis.

Second life has you by the balls my friend!

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Probably because they have only "talked" about implementing micropayments in BF Heroes, just as the idea of micropayments is in the "what if" stages with titles like Spore.

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Dual boot?

If the OS running under what you're wanting to do is so antithetical to you then you *might* want to take a look at your values. If you don't have a copy of a legit Windows OS running around than my apologies and you are correct in saying so but, really, unless it is financial reasons it isn't that hard to boot to another OS to run what you want.

The day I let an OS decide, or even a goal, what I use for software is the day I fail. What matters to me is getting what I want or need out of the system