I've been kind of watching the discussions here about RMT and F2P vs. P2P. After reading a couple of these thread I did a few quick calculations.

1) There are 720 hours in a month

2) If you work eight hours a day / five days a week then you spend 160 hours a month

3) If you sleep 8 hours a night then you spend 240 hours a month

4) After work and sleep, you're left with 320 hours free time

Consider for a moment that many people don't even get that much free time and that the free time we have will be further limited due to time spent cleaning the house, spending time with family, eating, going to the bathroom, etc. The standard for the truely hardcore gamer is about 20 hours of game time a week with five to ten hours of game time for normal people.

The problem with current P2P business model is that many people feel that they have to play at least a couple hours a day to get their money's worth. With a time payment, you only pay for what you use. The problem then is to find a reasonable price that fits with the average gamer's usage while not exceeding the current $15 a month fee.

At the price of $10 per 100 hours, you fit the hardcore gamer's monthly time usage while cutting about $5 off of the fee. For $32 you can cover all the free time you will actually have in a month as a working adult. The only part of the equation that I haven't figured in is the price of server space and bandwidth. This really isn't as big of a deal when you consider that you can project the total amount of bandwidth required based on population, number of hours sold and average monthly hours sold during the last business quarter.

Seriously, this is a win / win situation for everyone. The players get there game cheap AND balanced, while the devs get an easy tool for scaling their backend infrastructure while still turning a profit.

I would never pay for a game by hours.  EVER.

Some weeks I get really addicted to an mmo im playing, and ill put in almost 70 hrs that week if the girlfriend is bugging me.

Ive done it multiple times.  No way in hell would I ever pay per hour, my hourly needs change...

MMO developers love people like myself that pay $15 a month to play maybe 10 or less hours a week.  If they were to offer a plan per hour I would be incredibly happy but their pockets wouldn't be lined nearly as well as the set fee.

Don't expect to see a dollar an hour system in the US or EU for some time.

I would like a capped use each month. It would do several things:

It would combat farming, make it possible to combat addiction (<--very important imo), force game designers to provide more content and gameplay instead of repetitive tasks. More importantly, it would put players on a more level playing field.

I'm a very big fan of the Chinese limited 2-3 hour / day approach.

(do not read this as being a fan of their general institutional policies)

Charge by the hour = I hang up mmorpgs.

I'm sure I'm not the only one, either.

Originally posted by Waterlily

I would like a capped use each month. It would do several things:

It would combat farming, make it possible to combat addiction (<--very important imo), force game designers to provide more content and gameplay instead of repetitive tasks. More importantly, it would put players on a more level playing field.

I'm a very big fan of the Chinese limited 2-3 hour / day approach.

(do not read this as being a fan of their general institutional policies)

 

 

Then go play in China. The NA doesn't work that way, and the NA mmorpg genre would see a drastic downturn in profitablity if they do this.

It just wouldn't work. Not only would it be even more of a pain in the ass for the gaming companies (dealing with an angry playerbase), but it would make gamers feel like the more they play, the more they pay. Having that in the back of your mind as you're doing a 1-2 hour raid just isn't a comfortable feeling lol. Players can rest easy knowing that $15 will be taken our of their account every month - no more, no less. That's a win/win.

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

The standard for the truely hardcore gamer is about 20 hours of game time a week with five to ten hours of game time for normal people.

Bit off with those statistics imo; 40% of MMO gamers play more than 20 hours a week; and that's way too big a percentage to be considered representative of the "truly hardcore" .

The most active 20% of the population play for 30+ hours; I'd consider that "hardcore".
The most active 10% of the population play for 40+ hours; that's what I'd consider "truly hardcore".

But still, 40 hours a week would only equate to $16 a month under your "10 Hours/$" thing, and it would undoubtably save the vast majoity of us a reasonable chunk of cash, so I say bring it on.

Originally posted by Waterlily

I would like a capped use each month. It would do several things:

It would combat farming, make it possible to combat addiction (<--very important imo), force game designers to provide more content and gameplay instead of repetitive tasks. More importantly, it would put players on a more level playing field.

I'm a very big fan of the Chinese limited 2-3 hour / day approach.

(do not read this as being a fan of their general institutional policies)

 

 

No. I was laid up for two months after a knee surgery and played 8-14 hours a day during that period. It's about the only thing there was to do besides watching soap operas, which I hate. So don't apply your nanny state ideas to people who neither desire nor need them. If you want to put people on a level playing field shoot them in the head and lay them out in rows because that's the only time people can truly be on a level playing field. All else being equal, things never are.

Currently I play about eight hours a week maximum.

No. Just no.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by Waterlily

I would like a capped use each month. It would do several things:

It would combat farming, make it possible to combat addiction (<--very important imo), force game designers to provide more content and gameplay instead of repetitive tasks. More importantly, it would put players on a more level playing field.

I'm a very big fan of the Chinese limited 2-3 hour / day approach.

(do not read this as being a fan of their general institutional policies)

 

 

 

No. I was laid up for two months after a knee surgery and played 8-14 hours a day during that period. It's about the only thing there was to do besides watching soap operas, which I hate. So don't apply your nanny state ideas to people who neither desire nor need them. If you want to put people on a level playing field shoot them in the head and lay them out in rows because that's the only time people can truly be on a level playing field. All else being equal, things never are.

Currently I play about eight hours a week maximum.

You bring up a very important fact that many don't realize when making their equations. Not all people with 20-30-40 hours a week to play mmorpgs are mommas boys living in basements. There is a very large percentage that have disabilities and cannot leave home very often that use mmorpgs for both entertainment and social interaction.

I totally understand what you're saying, but this hurts people like me.
Sometimes I don't work for fairly long periods at a time. And a handful of times, I've spent almost 100 hours in a week logged playing my MMO. I'm not even fucking joking. I have real life friends who play the same MMO as me, girlfriend goes on holiday, and what do we do? Gaming fest baby!

I remember one time we played for 36 hours streight, not counting bathroom and food breaks, its hard to believe, but I'm not joking. Play all day, get drunk whilst playing through the night, then play next day untill you just... drop? Haha. Gaming is more than just gaming sometimes, it's about having fun with your mates aswell. EDIT: Then when you wake up next time, you've got the guild on Ventrilo with all these fucking nutty recordings of what we were getting up to. Classic.

Don't like the sound of paying $10 per week thanks. Hahaha, that's be insane. Thinking about this now, even I think I'm crazy.

An alternative: pay 1 $ for resurrection every time your char died. That would mean some seriously exciting pvp. Not to mention the epic flaming that would ensue when the newest guild member just wiped the whole raid by doing something very stupid.

"G*d damnit, Leroy .... that just costed us 40 bucks, you owe us big time ...."

lolz

I feel compelled to point out that Jimmy did say that the price per would still indeed be capped at that standard $15 dollars a month, i.e. not to exceed that amount so even if someone did spened 320 hrs a month playing a game it would still only be $15, not $32 dollars.

Personally I think this is a really good idea, half the reason I've hesitated to switch between f2p's to p2p's is because I don't want to sink money into a game I may only play a little.  There is a considerable difference between 4 or 5 dollars a month to $15 on top of the cost of the software.  In a changing gaming enviroment, and for as much as I have seen some people lunge into attacks on Rmt's and rants about f2p's how could making p2p's more accessible be a bad thing?

lol by the hour. you so funny.

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.

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your kidding right?

Nice alternative thinking, and I admire the attempt...but it won't wash in this country. This would end up being called the Hardcore Gamer's Tax.

"All you can eat" is the American Way.

Originally posted by Talemire

It just wouldn't work. Not only would it be even more of a pain in the ass for the gaming companies (dealing with an angry playerbase), but it would make gamers feel like the more they play, the more they pay. Having that in the back of your mind as you're doing a 1-2 hour raid just isn't a comfortable feeling lol. Players can rest easy knowing that $15 will be taken our of their account every month - no more, no less. That's a win/win.

And that's better than feeling like the more  you pay the more you HAVE to play?

The more options the better. If they offer an hourly price along with other pricing schemes then thumbs up. The more options a customer has the better. As long as the price pr hour does not inflate the price pr month.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

The standard for the truely hardcore gamer is about 20 hours of game time a week with five to ten hours of game time for normal people.

Bit off with those statistics imo; 40% of MMO gamers play more than 20 hours a week; and that's way too big a percentage to be considered representative of the "truly hardcore" .

The most active 20% of the population play for 30+ hours; I'd consider that "hardcore".
The most active 10% of the population play for 40+ hours; that's what I'd consider "truly hardcore".

But still, 40 hours a week would only equate to $16 a month under your "10 Hours/$" thing, and it would undoubtably save the vast majoity of us a reasonable chunk of cash, so I say bring it on.

So we ignore the 60% that play less than 20 hours a week? Yeah, 40% is a significant percentage, but when you break it down the number of people that play like it's a full time job are just not really where the money is. As a gamer I see where you're coming from, but if I look at this as a business then minimal hourly charges make way more sense.

I think it's funny how many people are talking about how overpriced this is when I'm talking about ten cents an hour. Cell phone minutes can cost more than that and you have no problem with paying your cell phone bill every month! What happened to telling the F2P players that $15 a month is cheap? What? $15 is chump change but $32 is a major spending decision.

I can understand the guy that was laid up for a couple of months with nothing better to do not liking this idea, but I'm willing to guess that once you got back on your feet you would be chomping at the bit to do something, anything, other than sit on your ass. You only pay for what you play so it all averages out. With the current subscription model, if you only play on the weekends or take a month off, you're still paying for it.

And IMNSHO, if you're perfectly healthy and playing more than 100 hours a week, then you have a problem and should seek help. There are only 168 hours in a week. You're sleeping between  42 to  56 hours which means that:

1)you're only working part-time

2) You're single

3) You're family barely sees you

4)  you're playing at work.

Seriously, I can see going on a 48 hour weekend binge, but 40 to 100 hours a week? That's not even remotely sane.

Originally posted by DarkPony

An alternative: pay 1 $ for resurrection every time your char died. That would mean some seriously exciting pvp. Not to mention the epic flaming that would ensue when the newest guild member just wiped the whole raid by doing something very stupid.

"G*d damnit, Leroy .... that just costed us 40 bucks, you owe us big time ...."

lolz

I've actually thought about this myself in the past. But, imagine a server crash, imagine a hacker, imagine a new player. I personally think it'd be really nice, BUT, it wouldn't work. ;) It punishes the "underdog", by taking his money away. I'm not the underdog in MMOs at all (so it'd be fine for me), but I don't like it.

ianubisi, perfect way to put it. Can't be said better. /Agreed

EDIT: Jimmy, yeah didn't think about the fact that it'd all average out. And again, I didn't consider how many hours are in a whole week either, LOL. Right, maybe I don't play that much, but I do play a hell of a lot sometimes.