sea
inXile Entertainment
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
- Messages
- 5,698
Yeah, this new free to play option sucks.
The issue is that they probably have ~500,000 subscribers who are keeping them afloat, but they know that those people won't be around forever. Additionally, if they introduce free to play options while maintaining a subscription model, they risk upsetting those paying players, especially if the free options are "too good." It's admittedly a difficult balance to hit - make free play compelling enough to a) get people to play it and b) tempt people to spend money on the game, while at the same time c) do not alienate existing fans d) do not segregate the community too much that all long-term MMOish gameplay is ruined.
Personally, I think they need an additional layer of player-driven content like Guild Wars 2's WvW play, or really any sort of actually good PvP stuff, because that is what keeps a lot of the long-term fans coming back on a weekly basis (and the close social circles make buying cosmetic cash items more appealing). I also think they need to abandon the subscription model. With enough silly hats, slot machines, XP boosts, etc. in the cash shop, they would probably make more money than they are now... sure, you might lose out on a guaranteed $15 a month from ever player, but you would probably grow the player count by 2-3x; even if just 10-15% of those players spend money, most of them will spend closer to $30-100 a month instead of $15.
Part of it is just simple economics too. EA and BioWare are huge companies with hundreds of staff, but I'm pretty sure many of those successful but smaller MMOs out of Asia have far fewer employees at lower salaries running them - for instance, Nexon, despite having millions of players, probably have 1/10th the support staff EA do, not to mention most development is handled by external studios. That makes a huge difference and allows them to be successful where a company like EA is not.
The only problem of course is that, speaking from hands-on experience, any non-subscription MMO with heavy focus on cash items becomes a haven for gold farmers/scammers/etc., even more than your usual MMO. While those players actually tend to spend even more than the legit players, if a game develops a reputation for being a hacker's paradise, it can severely fuck up things for everyone else. I wonder if BioWare and EA are prepared to deal with 5x the usual customer support problems.
The issue is that they probably have ~500,000 subscribers who are keeping them afloat, but they know that those people won't be around forever. Additionally, if they introduce free to play options while maintaining a subscription model, they risk upsetting those paying players, especially if the free options are "too good." It's admittedly a difficult balance to hit - make free play compelling enough to a) get people to play it and b) tempt people to spend money on the game, while at the same time c) do not alienate existing fans d) do not segregate the community too much that all long-term MMOish gameplay is ruined.
Personally, I think they need an additional layer of player-driven content like Guild Wars 2's WvW play, or really any sort of actually good PvP stuff, because that is what keeps a lot of the long-term fans coming back on a weekly basis (and the close social circles make buying cosmetic cash items more appealing). I also think they need to abandon the subscription model. With enough silly hats, slot machines, XP boosts, etc. in the cash shop, they would probably make more money than they are now... sure, you might lose out on a guaranteed $15 a month from ever player, but you would probably grow the player count by 2-3x; even if just 10-15% of those players spend money, most of them will spend closer to $30-100 a month instead of $15.
Part of it is just simple economics too. EA and BioWare are huge companies with hundreds of staff, but I'm pretty sure many of those successful but smaller MMOs out of Asia have far fewer employees at lower salaries running them - for instance, Nexon, despite having millions of players, probably have 1/10th the support staff EA do, not to mention most development is handled by external studios. That makes a huge difference and allows them to be successful where a company like EA is not.
The only problem of course is that, speaking from hands-on experience, any non-subscription MMO with heavy focus on cash items becomes a haven for gold farmers/scammers/etc., even more than your usual MMO. While those players actually tend to spend even more than the legit players, if a game develops a reputation for being a hacker's paradise, it can severely fuck up things for everyone else. I wonder if BioWare and EA are prepared to deal with 5x the usual customer support problems.
