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Originally posted by beauturkey
When you look at the success of Wizard101, club Penguin, Ruins of Magic, Atlantica and Freerealms (which more or less exploded onto the market) IMHO, MMO makers are going to have a hard time justifying NOT going RMT / premium service model. Contrast those to the most recent subscription based MMO's released where the hottest topic is server consolidation not long after their launch (Age of Conan, WAR...) I think you get a pretty clear picture of where this genre is going. Had western companies not launched so many low quality poorly made games based on monthly subs over the years, players wouldn't be so jaded and leery of them. I'm sure the string of games where people upgraded their PC, dropped 50 bucks on a box and then were expected to shell out a monthly sub for a game that hardly worked at launch and wasn't even close to finished had an impact on all of this.
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I think the same people who argue "RMT is inevitable" are the same people who seem to believe (falsely) that the majority of MMO players like PvP. They only see the market through their jaded eyes and ignore all facts surrounding reality. The only reason RMT works is because the markets they are mainly run in (third world) are were people do not have a steady stream of reliable income or own their own home internet connections. Over there, the job situation is by and large agricultural or some other type, and people do not simply have the $15/month to steadily pay. So being able to pay $10 one month and nothing the next when you dont' have money makes sense. This model will evolve in NA and EU, but will never be as popular as monthly subs because games that run off a P2P model offer tons more content. I do not consider fluffy mounts, tons of wardrobes and 5,000,000 emotes you can buy as "content".
"You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you." Zbigniew Brzezinski to Joe Scarborough regarding Clinton and the Middle East on the "Morning Joe" program. |
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When did buying items with a credit card become engaging fun gameplay? I think I will go elsewhere to actually you know PLAY my games when all online games (would you still be able to call it that) become infested with this garbage. |
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It's hilarious how many mmo players love to make companies into some sort of Lex Luthor-esque bad guy because they offer premium services through micro transactions or outside product codes i.e. WoW TCG loot cards. The truth is, is that wanting to make lots of money through selling cash shop only items to players doesn't make a company 'evil' or 'greedy'. It makes them a 'company'. Personally I don't see a problem with offering extra content through a RMT system, wether or not the premiums are cosmetic or character-enhancing. If it's some person's idea of fun to plunk down 20$ to buy some hawt gear for thier character so they can hang with thier higher-level friends and not get mauled (or grief some noob in pvp, or WHATEVER the reason REALLY doesn't matter) then why should anyone care? If the game stops being fun because of a poorly-implemented cash shop, you don't have to get your spending impulse fix at that particular game. If the mmo doomsday prophets are right (they're not) and RMT destroys every single half-decent game to be released in the near future, therby damning the MMO industry, then just go play some single player games on your PC and/or console of choice, but before you do, remember that lots of those games also offer 'premium content for a nominal fee' as well. |
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Originally posted by DarkRexx
You can keep your "premium services" thank you. I will continue to you know PLAY games for items. I don't consider swiping my credit card for an item a fun game tactic to obtain an item. In fact that isn't a game at all anymore. I think all of you are missing the points of GAMES, they are meant to be played. I guess swiping a credit card to you is fun. Games are about gameplay, if a game is unfun to you then play a different one. You people sure are illogical in the way you "play" games. I will make a new fun game online for all of you to play. The object of the game is to swipe your credit card as many times as you can to obtain items and then sit in the town and stare at yourself. It's a blast! |
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Originally posted by daylight01 I really hope this isnt the case mate,the thought of a pvp battle with regards to my visa bill does not get me excited. I do how ever feel you maybe right and that gaming companies will make more money this way,I guess then I will step back and get another hobby. I guess the good news is I cant see it happening in the next 4 or 5 years,no need to worry atm.
Seconded, theres no pain like watching money go out your account at a rate of knots and still have average gear, when i played RF Online, they introduced the cash shop before they made it F2P, i admit the game was already proper f****d from entire guilds of chinese gold farmers and it got to the stage where it was RMT or you were left behind, a nobody, i had to pay £60 just to upgrade my gear after a year and a half because sum1 who bought the game 2 months ago and threw alot of money at it was able to nuke me with a red seige kit.. sorry but RMT is fucking bs in subscription games and free to play games are shit and i cudnt care if they have cash shops. If NCSoft put a cash shop in Aion with items that affect pvp im gone, and im never playing an mmo again, back to fps and single player games.
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Both ther IRS in the US and HMRC in the UK have already taken notice of online money and how they can tax it. A woman in the UK made shoes in Second Life and when she checked her account she had over a million pounds as her shoes had become extremely popular. Now she is in a row with the tax man as they claim that is income and they would like their 40% please. So with multinational games and differing tax systems any big game that goes in for RMT could have to have a very big tax accountant just to be on the right side of the tax man. |
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I dont post here often but i had to pick up on this pretty silly comment. Did you just say Korea was a third world country ? (being its one of the largest markets as you say for RMT to be run in) Originally posted by popinjay
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ronan32
 Apprentice Member
Joined: 8/19/05
I will never play an mmorpg with Microtransactions |
Originally posted by Kyleran I meant as a pre buisness model,atm alot of mainstream games release as a monthly fee and I dont see that changing(if ever)for at least 4-5 years. We have mainstream F2P games with RMT now along with P2P mainstream games with RMT now. Ideally the game developers want both sub fees with RMT. SOE for sure will release DC Online with RMT or some sort either with cash shop or TCG lottery. I think you are missing the point a little. You mention the like's of WoW in a later post,also you say that DC will release with RMT. Now wow's payments are for things like server change,name change etc.we dont know what the extent of DC will be but with WoW's it doesnt improve your guy,it just gives you alittle more freedom to move him around or his looks. As I said in my 1st post I dont want to battle guys who may or may not have a bigger Visa card,anything that is for looks or what server they play on doesnt matter....we still play on a level playing base,this has nothing to do with what your player can do ingame,only what server and how he looks doing it. What alot of players dont want is the fact you can buy lots of pots/upgrades/armor/etc/etc. Then you have an advantage because you spend more real cash every month>>>>no more skill or how you play,just how much you can afford.
As a person who has never been able to compete in the "how long you play" or in the twitch "skill" arena I find it refreshing that some games are going to be give advantages based on how much you can afford. Think of the positive incentive this will give players to succeed in the real world first, and in gaming worlds 2nd. I think the system is a bit backwards today and rewards gamers for the wrong behavior. RMT is cheating thats all it is, cheating legally. i cant believe that a person would by a game and then pay more money to get all the best items, aren't games supposed to be fun? wheres the reward if you can just buy that epic sword with real money. The new mmo generation of players are ruining the genre ,with their constant whining about i cant compete with other players, or i suck at pvp so i dont like it. rewarding a player because of the size of his bank account is a step backwards in my opinion. |
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What the hell kind of mmorpg site is this, where they pay tools like that Sanya broad to write 'articles" blaming the players for every fuck up devs do, and now they got this joker writing abut how RMT is the best thing ever. Why not just name this site WEARESELLOUTS.COM_ and be done with it? |
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Originally posted by qombi
You can keep your "premium services" thank you. I will continue to you know PLAY games for items. I don't consider swiping my credit card for an item a fun game tactic to obtain an item. In fact that isn't a game at all anymore. I think all of you are missing the points of GAMES, they are meant to be played. I guess swiping a credit card to you is fun. Games are about gameplay, if a game is unfun to you then play a different one. You people sure are illogical in the way you "play" games. I will make a new fun game online for all of you to play. The object of the game is to swipe your credit card as many times as you can to obtain items and then sit in the town and stare at yourself. It's a blast!
Why does it bother you that some people choose to pay for items off of a cash shop? It's not like I'm condoning third party services that just as often rip you off as deliver whatever service they've promised (gold, power-leveling, big tits, what-have-you). I think your issue is that you like to put a lot of game time into earning things for your avatar, whatever game you happen to be playing, and that the fact is that there are other people out there that think to themselves, "Gee, I sure don't have a lot of time and/or patience to earn level (fill in the blank) and I'd really like to start having some MMO fun. But luckily there's this nifty little cash shop that sells EXP gain potions and items that ensure my gear wont explode from trying to enchant it . Also I want cat ears." So, you notice this and because you feel a sense of accomplishment for earning your items through the tried and true method of grinding ad nauseum, you go off on a tanget like an old man yelling about 'work ethic'. The Fact Of The Matter is this: When you play a subscription game, you're paying for content you have to work to earn. When you use a RMT service provided by the company, you're getting what you pay for right away instead of having to grind like a mother in order to earn it. You end up spending roughly the same amount of money either way, and I'm not sure why you dislike people because your sense of fun is different than others.
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WSIMike
 Elite Member
Joined: 3/09/04
Playing: Dissidia FF |
Originally posted by Vortigon
He seems to be of that spoiled "have my cake and eat it, too" mindset. He wants to spend all his time doing only what he wants to do, but still have access to the good stuff, when he wants it. As for it not constituting a problem for anyone else... It very well can constitute a problem. Ever experienced elitism in a MMO? Elitism over gear, etc? I have, plenty. If there's a sword you can purchase, and it's deemed a "must-have" weapon, then there will be people who will shun you from parties for not having it. So now, if you want to be able to participate in parties, etc, you need to pull out the Visa and buy it. Expand that out to armor, or potions, etc. etc. That very well *can* be a problem, especially for people on a tight budget... which leads me to my next point.
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Originally posted by WSIMike
He seems to be of that spoiled "have my cake and eat it, too" mindset. He wants to spend all his time doing only what he wants to do, but still have access to the good stuff, when he wants it. As for it not constituting a problem for anyone else... It very well can constitute a problem. Ever experienced elitism in a MMO? Elitism over gear, etc? I have, plenty. If there's a sword you can purchase, and it's deemed a "must-have" weapon, then there will be people who will shun you from parties for not having it. So now, if you want to be able to participate in parties, etc, you need to pull out the Visa and buy it. Expand that out to armor, or potions, etc. etc. That very well *can* be a problem, especially for people on a tight budget... which leads me to my next point.
Well said. |
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I really dont mind F2P games with item malls.......I have never even looked at what items are in the item mall and they are no temptation for me.....The item malls are only temptaitons for the lazy, spoiled, or ones that feel they have to be superior to other players......It really doesnt matter to me if I hit level 50 or level 20 in most games....I play as long as I am having fun and when it gets stale I move on. |
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To make an RMT based game viable long term a company needs to give players incentives to return to the shop repeatedly to purchase more of what it is selling. The only way to do this long term seems to be increase the scale of power of items in the shop or make gameplay more difficult without it. Maybe a combination of both.
Eventually people will get enough clothing, emotes, mounts that those types of items just will not be as big of a draw as they initially were. The only option left is to make gameplay suffer for those who chose not to buy whatever widget they are selling this week. That is the achilles heel of that type of design process. Eventually the revenue system gets in the way of making a fun game.
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Beatnik59
 Apprentice Member
Joined: 11/23/05
"Playing things I shouldn''t be playing since 1977." Now Playing: |
My problem with RMT are the things that are taken out of the games to incorporate the RMT. Specifically, crafting. You can't have a game where everything good is created by players when the publisher is trying to sell stuff in the item store. Likewise, there's no point in crafting when all the really good stuff is available through RMT only. That's why games cannot ever have a robust player economy with RMT in place. There's simply no point in buying or selling goods and services in the game when the good stuff is sold on the publisher's website. In games with RMT, players are no longer creators of their world. They are consumers of the world the developers create for them. The player's role in these games is to show up, consume content, and then leave after they've consumed all the content they are willing to pay for. There is no incentive for players to do anything else, since the games put the item mall at the center of a player's experience, rather than let the players create their own community that satisfies their needs. See, the big problem with RMT isn't about how much money is made. The problem with RMT is how the games have to change in order to make the RMT scheme work. You can't have sandbox-style virtual worlds and player-centric features in a game with RMT, because the publishers want the player's experience to revolve around the out-of-game mall, rather than around the in-game, player generated mall. And so in order for RMT to work, games have to either get rid of the player-generated mall, or make the player generated mall so useless, nobody would want to go there. __________________________ "...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." "It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." |
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I see some people here attempting to use logic to explain how they think RMT is fair or not a problem, without realizing that logic is a two way street, not just one direction. For example, if RMT is fair in the virtual world, then the oppsosite would hold true in the real world. I should be able to go join that nice country gold cliub without any wealth what-so-ever( this would be the opposite of buying in). Obviously, this is not possible. In the real world we have to work for our wealth. In the virtual world we have to work for our wealth,see how the logic holds true in both directions? There should not be anyway for a person who played a game one week to be ahead of someone who played one month. It is that simple. Let's expand this logic into the business side of the game. If this really made any logical sense, then developers should be making more money from this business model,yet the opposite holds true. By allowing RMT into the game they are not only increasing those poorer players angst towards them, they are also providing shortcuts to the rich players.This leads to higher player turn over, as both types of players leave much sooner than they normally would. Do you think any of these F2P games have even come close to making the money Eve or WOW has from their game? By making a decision to allow RMT into their games, these developers have actually cut themselves out of money. How logical is that business decision? RMT helps nobody in the end.It only cheapens the game play experience and this is neither logical nor good business sense. How can anyone justify that? Logically,no one can. Axe |
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Why don't I just smack you all with my wallet! lol |
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Eve Online allows RMT of a sort. You can pay real money for game time codes and sell those codes in-game. They do not condone buying in-game money for real money directly or the reverse. The reason this works for this game is that it has a true free-market economy. There are no NPCs who are going to buy your loot and set artificial item valuation. The value of an item is set by the player demand. As such, the value of game time codes are set by player demand. The other factor that drives Eve's economy is all gear is tradable and you lose gear on death (some is randomly destroyed and the rest is lootable). |
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What is it with Richard Aihoshi and his petty hatred of the subscription model? First his boner for F2P, and now this. Sorry, but its popular because it works. I dont like the idea of people being able to pay for in-game advantages. Thats why all the best MMOs are subscription.
MMOs trace back to table-top RPGs (been a couple steps in-between, of course). I don't ever remember someone handing the DM at a gaming session $5 so they can simply, "magically" acquire a better sword, or armor, or get faster xp. The point of it all was to *play*, to adventure and explore and have fun no matter what you were doing. It wasn't to "race to level cap as fast as possible so you could move on to the next game". Heh heh, owned. That about sums up my opinion as well. If you want to do whatever you want, why play an MMO at all? Just play a single player game in co-op mode. The reason most people play MMOs is the fame factor, and RMT/F2P/whatever is a way of cheating in that regard. You are buying fame. People with money get an advantage. And I think most people who play MMOs understand that implicitly. Which is why those models will never be more than a niche. Subscription isnt necessarily a level playing field, but it is the closest thing we have seen to one so far. |
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Originally posted by OldBiker
When I spoke of EVE I was speaking of their player longivity and sub income versus the non-existant sub rate of F2P models. I thought that was obvious as I spoke of income in that particular paragraph. Not much sense in trying to pick apart someone else's post if you do not read all of it or grasp all the concepts being laid out. :) |
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I agree with Dana. These last few years I've played several games a few F2P included and probably spent overall few hundred dollars. If it happens over a long period of time it doesn't mean as much since it matches the same amount of money if I'd try all those lazy lame MMORPGs that are being release unfinished and with no content. Every P2P MMO has a standard "fee" included. You need to buy a copy of the game ~50$ and then 15$ a month. So its 65$ you want it or not. Game like "Runes of Magic" for example, you can spend those 65$ and may never need anything from Item Mall again and have enough left to try anything new and unique when they add new items to IM. You can buy 1-2 mounts, Costume - which looks like an end-game gear, except that it has no stats, but you can aggregate later stats on it, just play the game, get the gear and combine them. You can buy a 2 story house (all the houses have maids in RoM), furniture, exp potions, train point potions, charms that will allow you to store exp and tp which makes leveling and progressing faster, etc... Just an example of what 65$ can get you these days. There are other F2p games, that are considerably more expensive. Atlantica Online for example if you are an Item Mall customer will probably make you spend several hundreds of dollars before you get anything really valuable. Most of the valuable items are a part of a gambling box mixed within other 16-19 items, so you roll the dice like in casino. Some people spend thousands of dollars there just to get all they need for the highest Divisions of Free League, which is the most popular PvP mode in Atlantica. So seeing all the games being released by Asian developers (I think there was at least 5 new games with Item Malls released last year or so) I could say that RMT is affecting gaming market a lot. Local developers and publishers like SOE try to legalize it to make it look less like an Item Mall and more like a part of legit investment. Same example with TCGs and reward of an in-game items. Instead of just taking your money like Asian F2Ps do and giving you the real items you get mini-games to spend that money on. TCGs are one of the most popular since they require you to buy starter decks and deck boosters to get all the cards you need and sometimes people spend as much money as if they'd buy expensive items through Item Malls in F2P games. |
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There is a problem though. Players in MMOs these days tend to gett hrough the content as fast as possible to get to the end-game that most of the time in new released MMOs is unfinished and unpolished. Can you give me an example of a really enjoyable MMO (except LOTRO) that game actually focuses on your 'journey' to level cap. This example with table-top game would be awesome if developers really cared about the time that we actually spend to get to level cap and the end game content. In todays MMOs most focus is on PvP, Quests are repetitive, redundant gameplay, simply not fun. Thats why most people just run from Npc to Npc, quickly click accept without even reading anything and rush to complete these quests to get another batch loaded, then rinse and repeat. Games are degrading so does the content. I can't say that any of the lately released 'standard monthly fee' MMOs are actually any fun. Unless of course you're 12 and all you need is PvP. Then you just rush through levels, get to level cap and enjoy the high level PvP by killing noobs. |
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Originally posted by WSIMike
I don't see the spoiled mindset you try to point out. He does says he's willing to pay for the bonus xp or extra weapons, simply to enjoy the game in more possible ways, how is that spoiled? Subscription based games do not provide a level playing field. Like stated in the article it's a question of time v.s. money. Sub based games are biased towards players with enough time, RMT games are biased toward players with money, finding a balance/combination of both is the key here where through time you can reach the same goals as you can reach by paying extra or vice versa. While it's hard to describe "the point" of MMO's, i believe "provide entertainment" comes pretty close and people are entertained in different ways. While you like to "work " for your sword of almightyness, i like to do other stuff and then "pay" for mine, we both do what we enjoy and have the same result, where's the harm in that? |
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BlackWatch
 Advanced Member
Joined: 11/01/06
Currently playing: WoW & Global Agenda. Currently hating: SWG, Aion, and fanbois. |
I'd like to get some numbers on how RMT has helped or hurt these 'F2P' games. I think RMT = easy way out for poor development. You should never be able to pay enough cash to pwn. I can see where people that simply can't game much might be attracted by the concept of shelling out a few bucks to catch up or surpass the gamers that are capable of devoting more time to the game... but that should never happen either. Cash = time/effort should NOT become part of the gaming world. Just my opinion, obviously, but it just shouldn't.
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