Would You Pay Pennies For Game Features? 64
Friday at GDC Austin saw the day starting with a keynote that may seem unusual to players unfamiliar with the Asian online gaming market. Nexon is a major player from the country of South Korea, boasting a handful of titles that see more users in a month than many well-known online games made here in the US. All of the company's titles, regardless of genre, have one thing in common: they're free to play, sort of. Microtransactions, the practice of paying a very small amount of money for an object or service, is what provides Nexon its revenue ... and plenty of revenue it is. Nexon America's director Min Kim gave a discussion on the realities of rolling Microtransaction-based titles out in the states, with a case study of the success of Maple Story's launch in our country.
Added features (Score:2, Informative)
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Here would be the process; Develop game, beta test(get everyone clamoring for the full game), dismantle-scrap-cherrypick all the fun and otherwise entertaining pieces, charge the sorry bastards.
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Bull, look at what EA did with Need for speed, buying unlocks?? What a farce. The only way I'd pay microtransactions is for BRAND NEW CONTENT, i.e. character models, cars, etc. things that I know some artist actually had to work DAYS ON. I don't want them creating a bunch of extra content DURING the development period and then "time releasing" it for extra profits from the hardc
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My point was this: EA didn't OMIT features from need for speed, yet they added the "feature" of buying unlocks. i.e. preying on users impatience to buy the unlocked car instead of racing for it. As micro transactions go forward don't think you won't see more of this bullshit.
Buying unlocks.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, people pay good money for cheat books to unlock all the bonuses and that money doesn't go back into game development -- instead, it pays a few guys to sit in a room and play games exhaustively. In capitalist terms, this is inefficient: the coders can do the job more quickly, hence cheaply. If they sell unlocks, the extra revenue they generate goes to the companies that are writing the games. In the long term, this means that the average player (he who has a bit of patience) pays marginally less.
HAL.
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Unfortunatly all these games are still horrificly boring Korean MMOs.
Wasn't always like this... (Score:3, Interesting)
I play Nexus TK, now owned by Kru Interactive, which apparently used to be called Nexon USA. They have been slowly moving more and more towards this model.
It used to be that the game was $9.95/mo for four characters, end of story. (Well, before that, it was a free Beta, but nevermind that.) It had been this way for almost decade, and still was when I joined last year.
The only exception was the free trial account, which went up to level 10, and lasted a week. (The game
Depends (Score:5, Insightful)
If the game's more like a demo, where you have access to only a severely limited version of the game where you have to pay to actually play "sensibly", it's a different matter. If you have to pay for something that you simply NEED to play at all, we're talking about bait and lure. It's only a buck here, only a buck there and in the long run, you pay a few 100 bucks for a game that you would've gotten for 50 if it was a "normal" game.
Generally, the idea is good, though. I'm honestly surprised that especially MMORPGs don't offer that kind of service, where you can either invest time to get a certain item or simply buy it.
Re:Depends (Score:4, Interesting)
Last Chaos - I believe it's made by the people who made "Sword of the New World". It's a free MMO. I didn't play it much but gold selling is the norm and so are micro-transactions who have NPCs setup to pickup your purchases.
Dungeon Runners - Sort of a Diablo-esque MMO. You can play for free but you cannot use pretty much any decent weapon that might drop from a boss or be given by special quests. For that you need to be a member, which will cost you $5 / month. Oh, and you cannot use the stacking health potions either.
Sword of the New World - While not free to play, it's a pretty cheap game. $20 for the game, $9 / month membership. You can purchase things outside the game, money, weapons, spells, and pick them up in game. This Korean game is being sold at Wal-Mart in the U.S. It was also previewed in Game Informer Magazine. I played it, it was pretty cool. Kind of a Guild Wars style game. You get to create a team of up to 3 members. So, you can always have a Healer, Tank, DPS group. Though, since most monsters die in 1 hit, you don't really need the traditional setup
In Korea, micro-transations are the norm. They're starting to make their way into the US market. But I can say, that after having played Tabula Rasa Beta, LOTRO, WOW, Shadowbane (trying it again, since it's ad supported free), Last Chaso, Dungeon Runners, EQ2, EQ, DAoC, CoH, CoV, Guild Wars, Sword of the New World, and I'm waiting for the Unreal Tournament-like MMORPG Fury to open their beta (they're selling beta CD's but their launcher tells you to wait a 'couple of days'... it's been 2 weeks so far), I can say that by far WoW is the most enjoyable by far, and I haven't even played it in probably 6-months.
I'm still looking for something that will be nearly as fun as WoW but not cost as much per month. The sweet spot for me is $10, I was paying this with LOTRO (a pretty good game that was close to WoW quality, but suffered the same as WoW except before you hit the max level) and I think for the AAA MMO, this is a fair price. Having found and played several free MMO's and some good very cheap MMO's, I see there being plenty of room for MMO prices to drop. I can see there being a WoW killer out there that's open source project, free, or very cheap based on ad supported and micro-transactions. I would pay $5 / month for WoW and probably never cancel if they ad supported it by putting some ads when zoning into dungeons/instances and into the game.
Until then, I'm a bit disappointed with the MMO commitment and costs considering what I've found out there. I've just started playing console and single player games again. To get some WoW, I just fire up WarcraftIII.
Oh, one other cool thing about Sword of the New World. EXP from quests came in the form of 'cards' which is an interesting concept as they might have been able to be traded to others (I never tried). It's interesting because it could make it easy for a friend to catch up to you if they joined the game at a later time.
Cheers,
Fozzy
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I corrected that one for you.
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Thanks, I didn't know they changed this. Makes me wonder if Wal-Mart is still selling the game for $20.
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Not that demos of games aren't a tried and true idea, but this is about full access for free, with perks like xp bonuses, "rest state" in WoW, consumable items like potions and such, even gold, for RL money.
A good concept, imho. No-lifers without jobs can still grind 24/7 but don't have to pay anymore. More casual players with jobs
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Terrible idea (Score:2)
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Because that's pretty much it. Instead of some gold seller the company itself sells items/gold/whatever for real money to people who don't want to play or "grind". That's basically the whole difference.
Maybe with the exception that you can actually play for free (or lower fees) because those people pay for it.
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It would at least eliminate the pesky farmers that keep you from accessing that mobs and bosses you need. The rest stays the same, except that, as mentioned before, you mig
But I wouldn't want to play in the first place (Score:2)
That doesn't sound all that much fun to me. If the process of getting the loot isn't fun, why are you playing in the first place?
Hell no. (Score:2)
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I think that this could be something that could possible even work with Free software (open source) games, or something similar.
It'd be great if they opened up the source for these games so that I could use it on any OS I choose to use.
Money (Score:1)
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Micro payments not necessarily "micro" (Score:1)
No, I wouldn't. (Score:2)
No, I wouldn't. I don't like being nickled and dimed.
I'd pay an extra $5 once in a while for something that's worth it but if the value is only a few cents then you should have given it to me when I paid for the game.
Exception to the rule: If the basic game was -free- but I had to pay pennies here and there for worthwhile features then I'd pay the pennies. I don't game often enough, so this would represent a value.
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In the summary it says "they're free to play" as in the game is free too. Game's website [nexon.net]
So you didn't pay for the game. Therefore, what things should they have given you when you "paid" for a free game?
It's kind of a neat concept. Imagine WoW where you could pay a dollar to get a good sword.
Speaking of WoW, why should I have to pay every month to play a game that I paid for. Guild Wars [guildwars.com] is free once you buy the game. And Eve-Online [eve-online.com] is free for the game, but you pay every month. WoW skrews(sic) you inst
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Speaking of WoW, why should I have to pay every month to play a game that I paid for. Guild Wars is free once you buy the game. And Eve-Online is free for the game, but you pay every month. WoW skrews(sic) you instead.
Comparing Guild Wars to WoW is about as extreme as comparing Diablo 2 to EverQuest, which I've seen several people try to do. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they just aren't familiar with MMORPGs.
Basically, what it boils down to is that in the software industry, the majority of the costs go into developing and maintaining the software. The costs of manufacturing each individual disc is next to nothing. The costs are in creating the data that is pressed onto the disc. Before you can eve
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Fair enough. Guild Wars is much better designed since the creators don't need to stretch your playtime out to decades to make a few bucks.
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Speaking of which (Score:2)
Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, the game comes with all the problems of a free online game, meaning that the individuals has little invested in the community, and for every good person, there's at least one or two assholes. The GMs have gotten better at policing them, but high level players who are willing to screw with you just because they're bored are not uncommon.
The other problem with the game, is that originally, the micropayments offered little gameplay advantage to those people who payed. It was limited to clothing items to customize your avatar, as well as other cosmetic changes.
Now, we can have pets that loot for you and give bonuses to speed and jump($12/3 months). Shops to sell things when you're offline($2/month to $10/month). Cards that give you 2x experience and 2x drops($19/month each). Teleport rocks so you can avoid waiting between continents($2 per use).
It's fairly easy to spend more than a normal pay only game, and those that do have a huge advantage over time than those that don't. There are people in the community that have hundreds, if not thousands invested in their characters.
Still, I get a good gaming experience for on average about $5/month, so I prefer it over a bigger commitment..
Second Life (Score:2)
Maybe not pennies (Score:2, Funny)
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Probably an idea to get used to (Score:3, Insightful)
Yo ho ho! (Score:2)
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What do you mean, I can run the sails but not the guns??
That, IMHO, is vastly different from paying 10 cents for a purple pirate hat that has no practical purpose other than to look cool.
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I'd pay for... (Score:1)
What about paying less for fewer features? (Score:1)
It would be nice to get a rebate on games where you aren't using all the features.
I wonder how many people would play WoW with the graphics dialed down to Atari 2600 quality...
The problem with microtransactions (Score:2)
Mapel Story (Score:1)
Re:Maple Story (Score:1)