Originally posted by green13

Who conducted this "research"?

Frank N. Magid Associates, and PlaySpan, the leader in monetization solutions for online games, virtual worlds, and social networks

And did anyone in particular pay them to conduct it?

 

PlaySpan ordered the study from Magid. Magid did the study. You're saying Magid is now involved in gold selling? Or are you really trying to convince people that it's suspicious that the the seller of a certain product would pay an independent researcher to do a study on their product's market and buyers?

Are you trying to spin that PlaySpan had a hand in the study and guided the results? That Magid is a fraud and not a legitimate research firm?

 

These numbers don't gel with statistics reported by free-to-play mmo operators, who indicate that only a small percentage of players - under 10% - will ever spend money on their game.

 

"...but only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything." - the article you linked

"Did You Know 12% of Americans Spent An Average of $30 Last Year on Virtual Goods?" - subheader of the discussed report

Those conclusions seem to be pretty similar to me. That you even went on to say "under 10%" further proves the only one trying to pull the wool over the eyes of anyone here is you.

 

It's interesting that it should appear on the Ten Ton Hammer site - who seem to be very chummy with the Cryptic folk and who currently have CO advertising splashed all over their site.

This "research" has all of the hallmarks of a marketing stunt.

Because they have an ad from a game that has microtransactions it means they have an agenda? Can you direct me to an MMO portal site that doesn't have ads from companies that have microtransactions? Are all these sites in bed with PlaySpan?  That's one mighty big bed, greenie!

 

Some serious tinfoilhattery going on.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by green13

Who conducted this "research"?

Frank N. Magid Associates, and PlaySpan, the leader in monetization solutions for online games, virtual worlds, and social networks

And did anyone in particular pay them to conduct it? 

PlaySpan ordered the study from Magid. Magid did the study. You're saying Magid is now involved in gold selling? Or are you really trying to convince people that it's suspicious that the the seller of a certain product would pay an independent researcher to do a study on their product's market and buyers?

Are you trying to spin that PlaySpan had a hand in the study and guided the results? That Magid is a fraud and not a legitimate research firm?

 

These numbers don't gel with statistics reported by free-to-play mmo operators, who indicate that only a small percentage of players - under 10% - will ever spend money on their game.

 

"...but only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything." - the article you linked

"Did You Know 12% of Americans Spent An Average of $30 Last Year on Virtual Goods?" - subheader of the discussed report

Those conclusions seem to be pretty similar to me. That you even went on to say "under 10%" further proves the only one trying to pull the wool over the eyes of anyone here is you.

 

It's interesting that it should appear on the Ten Ton Hammer site - who seem to be very chummy with the Cryptic folk and who currently have CO advertising splashed all over their site.

This "research" has all of the hallmarks of a marketing stunt.

Because they have an ad from a game that has microtransactions it means they have an agenda? Can you direct me to an MMO portal site that doesn't have ads from companies that have microtransactions? Are all these sites in bed with PlaySpan?  That's one mighty big bed, greenie!

Some serious tinfoilhattery going on.

Are you trying to spin that PlaySpan had a hand in the study and guided the results? That Magid is a fraud and not a legitimate research firm?

There's no spin here. Ask any real researcher and they'll tell you exactly the same. If you have a vested interest in finding a particular result, it's not hard to do it.

"...but only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything." - the article you linked

"Did You Know 12% of Americans Spent An Average of $30 Last Year on Virtual Goods?" - subheader of the discussed report

Those conclusions seem to be pretty similar to me. That you even went on to say "under 10%" further proves the only one trying to pull the wool over the eyes of anyone here is you.

You've completely screwed this up.

The Playscan survey was not specific to mmo'ers. That's 12% of supposedly mmo'ers and non-mmo'ers. They report 46% when they restrict the results to mmo'ers.

So what I said originally is perfectly correct.

Because they have an ad from a game that has microtransactions it means they have an agenda? Can you direct me to an MMO portal site that doesn't have ads from companies that have microtransactions? Are all these sites in bed with PlaySpan? That's one mighty big bed, greenie!

This is what is commonly referred to as a straw argument. When you can't argue against what someone is really saying, you just make something up and then challenge them to defend it.

Nice try ...

I contend only that this might be a marketing stunt for the reasons already outlined.

Here you go again, throwing numbers around from some people whose aim is to promote the RMT model.  SHAME on you!  I expect that of Ten Ton Hammer, they are the relative bottom feeder in this industry and hence go in for sensationalism over facts.  That is no excuse for MMORPG to chime in.

My experience says those numbers are bogus.  I rarely see more than half that number with RMT items.

Think I will make up some numbers and publish a survey that shows 5% of players purchase RMT.  Those numbers will be bogus too, but I will bet someone will publish it.

Most of the studies I have seen show no more than 15% actually spend money on RMT.  Now that figure might go up if you include those people who use in game currency to purchase from players, but I would not count that as RMT at all.

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Originally posted by LynxJSA

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Originally posted by ghstwolf
 The idiots with the money (the financiers) will read this report, insist on getting in early...

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But that's just it. The popularity of microtransactions seems to be new to the people on this forum, but it has been a profitable and growing business model for years. "Getting in early" happened in 2005.

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To someone that knows little if anything about an industry (and many Financiers would fall into this category): this would be a fairly new model.  Beyond that, getting into a $1B a year business that could grow to $17.3B would be getting in early.

Sorry but this sort of self reporting is notoriously flawed and both the parties involved in the study have something to gain from inflated numbers. Playspan as a service provider, and Magid as a newly made "industry leader" (this report raises their own profile as a consultant for this service).

If this was pulled from game logs it would be more trustworthy. If this was handled by companies or organizations that had nothing to gain (ESA for example) it would be more trustworthy. If the sample for relevant data was more than 300 people (12% of a <2000 person pool) this might be more trustworthy. Literally, 230 people is what this data is based on, at this level only 2 or 3 respondents can make for huge deviations.

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Originally posted by ghstwolf

300 people (12% of a <2000 person pool)

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Originally posted by gatheris

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by gatheris

hmmm - a couple of posters and seemingly pushers of the rmt idea are rejoicing at these numbers 

 

I don't think it's rejoicing, as this is something they've known for years - it's old news to most, but a revelation to a lot of the posters here for some reason.

 

 

 

selective much

anywho - - - not a revelation or nothing new at all just griping about both paying a sub and then paying for content - - - some are happy with that some aren't

aren't = me

maybe a few others

 

Can you clear something up, what MMO charges a subscription then charges extra via RMT for more content? if your thinking DDO then thats incorrect, if you use the F2P model then you pay for the content you want access to, if you subscribe to the game you get access to all the game.

I just hope they will never destroy games I like currently (WoW, AoC, War, Lotro) with this bs. This says enough about what I think on micro transactions and ftp in general.

Originally posted by green13 

This study you've pointed us to does exactly the opposite of corroborate Playscan's results.

22% is nowhere near the 46% being reported by Playscan.

The Daedalus results do, however, line up with the results of this poll started by a Champions Online forum member, where you can see that 29% respond that they might be willing to spend money on MTs.

http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/442766

Stats I posted were only about gold buying and from four years ago. A poll I run on other site came up about 34% recently. It was on a site for a subscription game. I do not claim that Playscan report was accurate, but I would not be surprised if 46% or more was the case for some games.

Originally posted by qbangy32

 

Can you clear something up, what MMO charges a subscription then charges extra via RMT for more content? if your thinking DDO then thats incorrect, if you use the F2P model then you pay for the content you want access to, if you subscribe to the game you get access to all the game.

By that specific conditional Gatheris' post adds - "for more content" - one could define a paid expansion to be a microtransaction. :) 

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Here you go again, throwing numbers around from some people whose aim is to promote the RMT model.  SHAME on you!  I expect that of Ten Ton Hammer, they are the relative bottom feeder in this industry and hence go in for sensationalism over facts.  That is no excuse for MMORPG to chime in.

My experience says those numbers are bogus.  I rarely see more than half that number with RMT items.

Think I will make up some numbers and publish a survey that shows 5% of players purchase RMT.  Those numbers will be bogus too, but I will bet someone will publish it.

Most of the studies I have seen show no more than 15% actually spend money on RMT.  Now that figure might go up if you include those people who use in game currency to purchase from players, but I would not count that as RMT at all.

 

Ha, where have you been brother..

MMORPG dot COM has turned from a quality " latest and greatest"  MMOG news site, where one could get the latest buzz on a game, or one soon to be released game, To an Asian billboard site plastered with  free to play  MT games and news story pushing this crap like its the second coming. WTF happened to being neutral to MMOG's I see more con crap polls and blogs popping up here then any other site period, and pushed as the full blown word of a god... BS.

Funny how tentonhammer is being raised as the all mighty place to be. The site sucks mega load. Its always had an agenda.

Someone should do a poll on if mmorpg dot com's neutrality has been tainted with rtm advertising $$$.

Well you folks selling out or what, dont sandbag...

Originally posted by Auton

Um. 12% of 2000 is 240 people. But you do put a finger on the pulse here - the sample size seems curiously low for the kind of extrapolation going on, here.

 

Oops I did a real bad job of editting myself there.  Sometimes I place little notes like that for my own use (I like facts once in a while), that I delete as they are used in the post.  Right after that I say that their relevent sample is actually only 230 (ok 231.24 to be entirely accurate).  Going further, only half of those had an idea what they had spent, making the pool even smaller (I'll call it 116) . 

Why they are using the self-reporting method is beyond me.  Playspan has several years of data to mine for spending habits, although it would lack a lot of demographic information.  Both Playspan and Magid should know that the initial sample would need to be larger to reflect the smaller target demo they are seeking to learn about, just based on the sales data they have.

Originally posted by Samuraisword

If 46% have bought and thus supported, then 54%, the majority, have not, and by contrast do not support RMT.

As long as 54% of the MMOGs on the market don't offer any form of RMT, I could care less about the rest.

I will never, ever, play a game that offers or sanctions any form of RMT.

Those numbers will only go up as more existing MMO's incorporate RMT strategies and as more games like Freerealms and  Wizard 101 launch.

It will only take a shift of 2% of the MMO population for RMT to hit 50%. 2% is not that large a number given the speed RMT have been gaining ground. In fact, I am willing to bet that it will happen by the end of this year.

Not that I support RMT's, but I am a realist. This is the new business model. As much as I denounce them, even I caved a few months ago and purchased one of the new costume packs from City of Heroes. Yes, it's just fluff and does not affect gameplay, but I've gotten my ten bucks worth out of the new costume pieces and the additional funding the game has been receiving has enabled them hire quite a few additional developers.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Here you go again, throwing numbers around from some people whose aim is to promote the RMT model.  SHAME on you!  I expect that of Ten Ton Hammer, they are the relative bottom feeder in this industry and hence go in for sensationalism over facts.  That is no excuse for MMORPG to chime in.

I've been a bit disappointed by the flavour of some of mmorpg.com's recent articles - their Darkfall review was a travesty - but I look at the title of this thread which questions the idea that microtransactions are popular and the tiny bit of content posted with it and I'm inclined to see them as sitting on the fence on this one.

massivley.com is a different story. They've published outright lies about microtransaction research. They published a story under the title Subscription model unappealing to majority of users.

That's not even a minor misinterpretation - it's a whopping lie.

The research this incredible claim was based on is this one.

http://www.fatfoogoo.com/2008/07/mmo%E2%80%99s-need-to-offer-more-free-to-play-micro-transaction-based-titles/

The results (you can click on the graph to get a bigger image) are just the percentage of respondents saying they were highly interested (i.e. scored 6 or 7 on a 7 point scale of interest) in either subscription or free + MT payment model mmos. All these results say is that people not currently playing an mmo (i.e. not even "users") are more likely to be interested if it's free. That's hardly surprising - if you presented the same option with any other activity someone isn't already engaged in and gave them a free and a non-free version, you'd probably get similar results.

Originally posted by thexrated

Originally posted by green13 

This study you've pointed us to does exactly the opposite of corroborate Playscan's results.

22% is nowhere near the 46% being reported by Playscan.

The Daedalus results do, however, line up with the results of this poll started by a Champions Online forum member, where you can see that 29% respond that they might be willing to spend money on MTs.

http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/442766

 Stats I posted were only about gold buying and from four years ago. A poll I run on other site came up about 34% recently. It was on a site for a subscription game. I do not claim that Playscan report was accurate, but I would not be surprised if 46% or more was the case for some games.

The question is, do you think that many players who use other forms of RMT would never buy gold? Because otherwise that 22% figure would be a good estimate of the total RMT'ers.

Frankly I'm stunned by the 46% figure. What they've probably done is used an incredibly broad definition of  "virtual goods" - one which doesn't match ours. That's all they'd need to do. We know that they didn't restrict the survey to mmo'ers and it looks like some of the non-mmo'ers also purchased virtual goods.

And just look at the statistics they do report.

Where consumers are buying from:

1. Marketplace of the virtual world or game that a user is playing in (29%)
2. The official Web site of the virtual world or game (29%)
3. A web site of an authorized reseller of the virtual items (25%)
4. A web site of an unauthorized reseller of the virtual items (8%)
5. Another player (7%)
6. Other (5%)
7. Not sure (27%)

Now I'm not an RMT'er myself, but how exactly could you buy "virtual goods" and not be sure where you purchased them from? Almost a third of their sample seem to say they've bought virtual goods were "not sure" where that was from. That doesn't make sense.

Similarly about a third had bought them via the game itself. But the only reliable statistics we have indicate that a small minority of players of freebie+MT games ever spend money on it (around 10%), so we have to ask if their sample was biased. Note that Playscan don't say how they selected participants, only that it was an online survey and not where or in what manner it was published.

Also note that only 8-20% indicated they'd purchased "virtual goods" from an unauthorised source - which would indicate they were playing subscription mmos.

So the 46% number appears odd no matter angle you look at it from.

Ok I make myself as example. Bad example prolly, but nontheless.

In EQ2 I always used to bitch about EQ2 having so few and mostly uncool armor sets. Nothing fancy or nice. So in that SOE shop for EQ2 they finally added some nice armor sets. BUT: they were for extra cash. I bought one or two for my 2 main chars. I didnt like the fact we had to pay extra. I had wished they had added such fancy armor as normal part. But as I was also weak willed to resist (^^) I bought it.

So there is the paradox that (a) I hate microtransactions and (b) I still could not resist the temptation.

My guess is many players who do it are like me. It doesn't say we want microtransactions.

Originally posted by Yunbei

Ok I make myself as example. Bad example prolly, but nontheless.

In EQ2 I always used to bitch about EQ2 having so few and mostly uncool armor sets. Nothing fancy or nice. So in that SOE shop for EQ2 they finally added some nice armor sets. BUT: they were for extra cash. I bought one or two for my 2 main chars. I didnt like the fact we had to pay extra. I had wished they had added such fancy armor as normal part. But as I was also weak willed to resist (^^) I bought it.

So there is the paradox that (a) I hate microtransactions and (b) I still could not resist the temptation.

My guess is many players who do it are like me. It doesn't say we want microtransactions.

That just means you're normal :)

But all it would take to kill this payment model is for enough people to not subscribe to the game for a few months. Try other mmos - there's lots of good ones out there. And if you like EQ2, then I think you'd really enjoy Aion.

No shopping mall too....

I've read the report of the so-called study, and it's vague to the point of uselessness.

By their stated definition of virtual item the purchase of virtual currency like Microsoft Points on your Xbox would constitute paying real money for an intangible non-existant item.  So by the definitions in this study, (please note, I'm not saying they did this, just that what they've revealed of their methodology does allow for it), they could count every point purchase as a virtual item, even though those virtual currencies were immediately traded for a game expansion, add-ons like songs for RockBand, or even downloadable movie rentals, none of which any of us would define as virtual items.

This is a promotion, pure and simple, like a corporate press release trying to fob off a story on a new product line as real news.

Thing is about MT games is like 10% of the playerbase probably buy things more than once and then you have an even smaller percentage who spend like hundreds each month who probably keep the game running. Then the company can make money from ads from the rest of the population.

""Who Says Microtransactions are Popular?""

I thought its obvious that they are.

Originally posted by qbangy32

 

Can you clear something up, what MMO charges a subscription then charges extra via RMT for more content? if your thinking DDO then thats incorrect, if you use the F2P model then you pay for the content you want access to, if you subscribe to the game you get access to all the game.

 

EQ2 used to do exactly that with its adventure packs-- there were places you couldn't go if you didn't shell out the extra cash. That seems to have fallen by the wayside, but now, of course, you can buy vanity items for both EQ1 and EQ2 to go along with your subscription, so subscription and RMT do exist together.

Also, there's nothing in DDO that says you can't subscribe and then pay more for extra whatevers. Why would your subscription come with a certain amount of item mall credit if you were not likely to use it?